I am not a racist.
And yet there I was, sitting in the audience at “Tar Baby” — comedian Desiree Burch’s provocatively titled new show about race — wearing a sticker calling me one.
That label kept me out of the action in a show heavy on audience participation. It was a good thing, too, because I might otherwise have found myself onstage picking cotton, painting the performer’s face or playing a game of strength to “knock out racism.”
There’s a carnival-like atmosphere throughout director Isaac Byrne’s freewheeling production, with the stage festooned with posters and colored lights, and even at one point a tent pitched over the audience’s heads. The youthful-looking, full-figured Burch is the high-energy barker, promising to deliver a show that won’t feature “some old black lady telling you about a quilt.”
This sprawling comedic examination of the American racial experience, co-written by Burch and Dan Kitrosser, recalls George C. Wolfe’s “The Colored Museum,” with a little Richard Pryor thrown in. Aided by an actress (Phoebe Mar Halkowich) playing a silent “white slave,” Burch is intent on thoroughly weaving us into her theatrical machinations. And don’t even try to resist.
“Nobody gets to pick being a slave,” she points out while plucking a hapless person from the crowd.
The results aren’t as deep as intended. Whether inviting us to drink “Dr. Desiree’s Tar Baby Tonic” that “instantly delivers that minority experience” or taking instructions from the audience about “how to be blacker,” Burch seems more intent on scoring laughs than making coherent points.
Late in the show, when she jarringly delivers an angry diatribe and explains that “this is what black rage looks like,” the effect is more jarring than galvanizing. And the running theme involving the characters of Brer Rabbit and Tar Baby from the “Uncle Remus” stories seems strained, especially since modern audiences are likely to be unfamiliar with them.
Still, she proves a dynamic performer, fast enough on her feet to be wittily funny whether improvising with audience members or dealing with recalcitrant props.
She may not tie all the dangling threads of “Tar Baby” together in coherent fashion, but she makes plenty of amusing and thoughtful points along the way. Just be prepared to play along. Unless, that is, you want to be branded a racist.