A Boy and His Soul, Tricycle - theatre review

Colman Domingo performs in this one-man show about growing up and growing to appreciate one’s family, warts, faults and all
Donald Cooper
13 September 2013

Hiding deep within this shriek-fest of a one-man show is a quiet, thoughtful meditation on growing up and growing to appreciate one’s family, warts, faults and all. The trouble is that frenzied writer/performer Colman Domingo is almost never still enough to let this other, better piece break through. To say A Boy and His Soul is over-the-top makes over-the-top look under-emphatic.

The clever hook for his look back at a Philadelphia childhood as a bookish boy in a rowdy household is his family’s passionately-held love of soul music. Clearing out the junk-filled garage as an adult he comes across a box of old LPs and off we go, his youth soundtracked by the likes of Diana Ross and James Brown. Domingo, constantly mopping rivulets of sweat off his face, talks over many of the songs, which is an aural assault, and at one point he exhaustingly dukes it out simultaneously with both soul and a recording of Leontyne Price.

Ageing brings wisdom and a respite from the freneticism in Titas Halder’s uncontrolled production and the section in which Domingo comes out belatedly gives rise to a touching and humorous series of reported conversations.

Until Sept 21 (020 7328 1000, tricycle.co.uk)

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