The New York Times - Highly Recommended
"...Mind you, "For Colored Girls" is not aimed at small fry; its collection of verse monologues contains plenty of talk of grown-up sex, physical violence and emotional trauma. With characters named for the colors of the rainbow (and costumed accordingly here by Sarafina Bush), it has always been a love letter of sorts to Black girls and the women they become, and to the sustaining power of female friendships, from childhood on."
NY Daily News - Recommended
"...Critics declare the continuing relevance of plays so often these days, it has become a cliche. Great feats of writing (as this one) always have continuing relevance because they mold to any modern situation, being as human behavior tends not to change as much as we think. It's certainly true that a Black girl's song now is sung and heard more often on Broadway and elsewhere in the creative output of this nation. But it rarely has been sung better than this. To say "Colored Girls" was a prescient work hardly does justice to the word."
Hollywood Reporter - Highly Recommended
"...When for colored girls opened at Booth for the first time in 1976, it jolted the theater world with the frank and experimental way it approached the subject of Black womanhood. The seven women — each representing a color of the rainbow — recited monologues that detailed and wrestled with their experiences of love, loss, betrayal, violation and hope. Their poems were combined with dance and music to tell these intimate stories. The genre-defying work, which Shange had been developing since 1974, was only the second show by an African American to open on Broadway. It ran for two years. One hopes this version does just as well."
Vulture - Recommended
"...Even if you have never seen for colored girls, you'll get a sense that you're seeing a beloved and much-handled classic. The other Ladies murmur "alla my stuff, alla my stuff" in anticipation as Okpokwasili slides center stage to perform the aria; it's like watching an arena chant for a favorite song. There are a few contemporary touches - the Lady in Orange (Amara Granderson) does a slyly recognizable imitation at one point - but for the most part, the show seems as unchanging as a jewel, dug up already shining."
New York Theater - Highly Recommended
"...Brown also choreographed a production of the play in 2019 on a more intimate stage at the Public Theater, but that version had a different director, and only two of those seven actresses have moved to the Booth. In her Broadway directorial debut, Brown takes a noticeably bigger and splashier approach. The show now begins with a voiceover recording of Shange (who died in 2018), saying: "Imagine all the stories we could tell about the funny looking lil colored girls, and the sophisticated lil colored girls, and the pretty lil colored girls...the ones just like you!" This leads to an energetic entrance by all seven African American actresses , accompanied by Vogue-style photographs of their faces projected on the arena-sized screens that travel up to the rafters on both sides of the stage."
Variety - Recommended
"...Still, Shange's work remains as riveting as it was in 1976. Her words have become more than the unspoken and unrealized accounts of Black women's pain and promise; they have evolved into the gift of permission to heal and the agency to be seen and understood. It has become a memo to Black women to embrace their femaleness (no matter what that looks like) while looking to the rainbow as a sign of hope for the future of the collective, because they alone are enough."
New York Post - Somewhat Recommended
"...The seven black women onstage, each named after a color, give imagery laden speeches that are often about their traumatic experiences with rapists, murderers, alcoholics, cheaters and other jerks. Good guys are nearly impossible to find. The descriptions of the black men the characters encounter now read as extremely stereotypical."
amNY - Highly Recommended
"..."for colored girls..." is the kind of nonlinear and visceral theatrical piece that should be experienced live and does not translate well to other mediums, as demonstrated by a flat 1982 TV adaptation for PBS and Tyler Perry's ambitious but problematic 2010 film adaptation. (That being said, filming a pro-shot recording of the current production for a streaming provider like Netflix might not be a bad idea.)"
Time Out New York - Highly Recommended
"...This version of for colored girls truly does feel like a choreopoem, Shange's term for her amalgamation of words, motion and music. (The percussive original score is by Martha Redbone and Aaron Whitby). The seven women on stage are barefoot, and their movement-which draws on African-American traditions including juba, stepping and social dance-feels organic, natural and triumphant. "Sechita," performed and signed by Lady in Purple (the amazing Alexandria Wailes) and spoken by Lady in Orange (Amara Granderson), conjures a seductive Creole carnival worker dancing for dust-covered rednecks; we can almost see this mythical woman "catchin stars tween her toes.""
Deadline - Highly Recommended
"...As is tradition, the play nears its close with a searing tale of spousal abuse, violence and tragedy, recounted by Lady in Red (Kenita R. Miller, giving 1000%). An unspeakable horror is brought into the open, confronted and lamented. The director once again summons all the cast members to the stage, not for anything as simple as hugs and condolences but for dance and poetry and music, driving home the message yet again that for these women, survival and endurance is inseparable from sisterhood. In one another, they find themselves."
TheaterScene.net - Recommended
"...The cast, defined by the color of their casual street wear outfits (designed by Sarafina Bush) are a physically diverse group, one of whom-the always wonderful Kenita R. Miller, the Lady in Red-appears to be very, very pregnant. Her poem about getting rid of a lover was as close to hilarious as for colored girls gets. Miller also has to live through the show's final, heartbreaking story of brutality, a story that is still shocking."
NY Theatre Guide - Recommended
"...However, for colored girls frequently soars, particularly when its performers meet the moments that Brown is trying to convey. Lady in Green, Okwui Okpokwasili (in a brilliant Broadway debut) shows us what might have been as she calmly swaggers through the fantastic "Somebody Almost Run Off With Alla My Stuff." Here she shows us that green is not only the color of envy, but also earthy dominion as she takes the full measure of someone who tries to own her without really understanding the immensity of her being: "If it's really my stuff you got, you got to give it to me. If you want it, I am the only one that can handle it." As Green, Okpokwasili gathers the entire production together."
Stage and Cinema - Somewhat Recommended
"...Vivid and figurative, the monologues — drenched in the stereotyping and slamming of ’70s Black males — seemed difficult to concentrate on in this production, especially when ASL was utilized. When the show slowed down from near-constant movement and music, the monologues could become theatrical wonders, especially one from Kenita R. Miller, who should be nominated for a Tony as Lady in Red, whose horripilating tale of abuse was the show’s 11 o’clock number. Moments like this were too few to warrant this revival."
StageZine - Recommended
"...The late Ntozake Shange and her play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf were both ground-breaking. Ms. Shange was only the second African-American woman to have a play produced on Broadway by 1976. The first was Lorraine Hansberry and her immortal 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun. Ms. Shange coined the term “Choreopoem” for her play, meaning poetic monologues accompanied by dance movement and music. It tells the stories of seven African-American women who have suffered in a sexist society."
Daily Beast - Highly Recommended
"...Interspersed with their solo confessionals, the women come together to share and tell, sing and dance, other stories. "My love is too" involves each woman invoking their own word to add before the end of the sentence "to have thrown back on my face," including "delicate," "beautiful," and "sanctified." A horrific story of familial violence is followed by a laying on of hands and a resounding statement, spoken and visual, of collective care and strength. The women's exuberance, their togetherness, their loyalty to each other, their love for each other, is sustaining for them and a bracing, life-imparting thing to watch for us."
Broadway News - Highly Recommended
"...This revival of "for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf" is one link in a chain of productions re-introducing the work of our titans - Alice Childress, Adrienne Kennedy and more - to modern audiences. Only Shange's work has been on Broadway before, first premiering at the Booth Theatre, where the revival is currently playing, in 1976. It remains a seminal, sacred text; one I've been able to recite phrases from for the better half of my life. This revival, by director and choreographer Camille A. Brown, is the most essential production of Shange's masterwork to date."
Theatrely - Recommended
"...The same could ultimately be said of this production of For Colored Girls. The work is good because the text is good-because Ntozake Shange's choreopoem is one of the best and most important works of 20th century American art. In rushing to bring it to the new millennium, though, this revival forgets to stop and listen to its own words. It's not an ideal production, but if you can focus on the words themselves rather than the other stimuli thrown your way, it remains essential, vivid, and affirming."
New York Stage Review - Highly Recommended
"...Why delay the cheers? The revival of Ntozake Shange's 1976 for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf is stunning in every aspect. Stunning, you ask? Hasn't the word long since frayed and deserved consigning to the critic's trash bin?"
