. . Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enough is a choreopoem written by Ntozake Shange. This play started as a series of poems written by Shange, that organically grew through performances and additions into the work of art that eventually made it to Broadway in 1976 earning numerous awards including an Obie and a Tony.
In college, my theatre class performed this play as series of excerpts. For class, I performed The Lady in Brown Toussaint L'Ouverture piece. Unfortunately, for the actual performance, I was relegated to narrator for the Lady in Purple 'Sechita' piece.
All of this probably makes no sense unless you've read the play. The cast of characters are seven women named for the spectrum of the rainbow.
The play begins:
Lady in Brown
sing a black girl’s song
bring her out
to know herself
to know you
but sing her rhythms
carin/struggle/hard times
sing her song of life
she’s been dead so long
closed in silence so long
she doesn’t know the sound
of her own voice
her infinite beauty
she’s half-notes scattered
without rhythm/no tune
sing her sighs
sing the song of her possibilities
sing a righteous gospel
the makin of a melody
let her be born
let her be born
& handle her warmly.
Whoopi Goldberg was to bring a revival of this play to Broadway this fall but one of the producers pulled out. It was to star India Arie. Let's hope it sees the light of day. I really want to see it, ON BROADWAY!!
I hope to one day play The Lady in Purple instead of a dumb narrator.
