The revolution will not be dramatized

In envisioning an interview between the poetic, sui generis musician and a cub essayist, Magic Theatre’s world premiere anoints words with religious potency.

The right verbal rhythms, “Mr. Heron” (Carl Lumbly) says early in the script, “float on the lips; they glide in the mind.”

[...] in the show’s current incarnation, which opened Wednesday, June 7, under the direction of Loretta Greco, it’s not yet clear that Ong’s radiant language is best served on a stage.

A groundbreaking artist now past his prime lives in undignified seclusion, his genius still flaring, still able to drop exquisite bits of craft as if they were nothing.

Thankfully, the young journalist doesn’t have to make some grand discovery that his idol has fallen from grace, or about how Scott-Heron feels about being called “the godfather of rap,” or about why he had such a lengthy fallow period.

[...] if the play doesn’t let Julie declare in words that she’s done with these men and their limitless selfishness, a drill-like Fredericks nonetheless, in one moment, bores out a deadly silence that lets everyone know her Julie is capable of anything, anything at all.

Here’s the prophetic Scott-Heron on the deaths of black American men before Black Lives Matter: Each song you wrote, each book you started, was a detective story in disguise, all of them asking the same question:

Who’s killing all these black men? Here he is toward the end of the play, speculating about his words’ legacy: “The lyrics remain young, and they fly like they were intended to ... when I first snatched them from the air.”