Choir Boy at Portland Center Stage

On Friday, Stephen and I went to see a play for the first time since before the pandemic began. Gosh, how I've missed the live theater experience: the sets and lighting, the satisfaction of watching real bodies on stage, the feeling of laughing in a theater filled with laughter and applauding in the shared thunder of an audience.

The show was Choir Boy, and it's playing now at Portland Center Stage. It's the story of a handful of teens who sing in the venerated choir of an elite Black boarding school—and in particular Pharus, the group's star singer and choir leader. The play opens with Pharus, a junior, singing a solo at the commencement ceremony for the senior graduating class. His performance is interrupted by the homophobic taunts of Bobby, fellow choir boy and nephew of the school's headmaster. When, later, Pharus is called into the headmaster's office and admonished for getting distracted during the song, the boy refuses to rat out the guilty party out of loyalty to the schoolyard code that says you don't snitch on a classmate.

Written by Tarell Alvin McCraney, who wrote the play that became the film Moonlight, Choir Boy explores themes of race, class, sexuality, coming of age, striving for connection, and most of all, trying to hold onto one's pride of self.

Pharus starts out with plenty of that. He's confident, ambitious, conspicuously queer, effervescent. He's got a light inside and somehow, even in this all-boys school full of rules and expectations, he isn't afraid to put on the high beams. You get the sense he can't not shine as bright as he does. At first. Many coming of age stories are about a character starting small and growing, starting quiet and finding a voice. In Choir Boy we watch Pharus's already-present shine dip and dim against the shadows of events that threaten his sense of self.

Within this tension, though, and the creeping darkness, the show is funny and clever. And actually: infused with joy. Because of the music.

Drawing on gospel and spiritual music, including the traditional songs known as Negro Spirituals, the music in Choir Boy is wonderful, sung in gorgeous harmony, often a cappella, by Isaiah Reynolds (Pharus), Luther Brooks IV (Bobby), Gerrin Delane Mitchell (Junior, Bobby's sidekick), Delphon "DJ" Curtis Jr. (David, a bookish classmate who wants to become a priest), and Wildlin Pierrevil (AJ, Pharus's roommate). Every song made me euphoric. Even when the music was there to evoke less joyful feelings—melancholy, longing—the beauty of it still made me euphoric. I'd find myself sitting up straight in my seat, leaning forward, as if to get closer to it. At the end of one song, the man directly in front of me raised his arms and made jazz hands, or maybe praise hands, as the applause erupted. 

I liked the minimal set, the towering columns and brick-wall background that made you feel like you were inside the Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys. When we were in the shower room (where the boys wardrobed in nothing but towels made for opportunities for both tension and vulnerability), they rolled in a big tiled half-wall structure to denote the shower. When we were in the dorm room shared by Pharus and AJ, they rolled in two beds, Pharus's decorated with warm white Christmas lights, maybe alluding to that don't-hide-it-under-a-bushel light of his character.

This dorm room is the scene of some of the most important moments in the show, exchanges between Pharus and his roommate AJ that open up Pharus's character and gift him with some of the understanding and connection he needs as that bushel comes down. 

Watching Choir Boy, you do notice that the source material could use just a little more meat on its bones—the other boys are drawn a bit broadly and the premise isn't new—but this is made up for by the transcendent joy of its music, and the deep meaning of the power and tradition of that music. With clever dialogue and the always-skilled stagecraft of Portland Center Stage, it's a thoroughly engaging and thought-provoking show. It was a great production to experience after my pandemic-induced three-year theater dry spell. 

And truly, I'd see it again just for the music.

And it occurs to me as I say that last thing: this isn't what I should be getting out of going to see Choir Boy. This statement comes from a place of privilege. Me as a white woman, sitting at the edge of my seat enjoying the euphoric rush of beautiful sound. This music was not created for my enjoyment. The play goes into some of its true importance—and it's not my place to whitesplain it—but if you're interested in learning more about the amazing music the play draws from, Portland Center Stage wrote a great article about it here. 

Or hold off on the article and save it for reading in your program from your theater seats, Choir Boy runs through May 14, and more information is here.

Photo captions:

1) L-R: Gerrin Delane Mitchell, Isaiah Reynolds, Luther Brooks IV, Wildlin Pierrevil, and Delphon "DJ" Curtis Jr. in “Choir Boy”; photo by Jingzi Zhao/courtesy of Portland Center Stage.

2) L-R: Luther Brooks IV, Gerrin Delane Mitchell, Isaiah Reynolds, and Delphon "DJ" Curtis Jr. in “Choir Boy”; photo by Jingzi Zhao/courtesy of Portland Center Stage.

Poster design by Nick Orr.