Ines de la Cruz and Patrice Jean-Baptiste; Photo by Nile Scott Studios.
Presented by The Lyric Stage
By Pearl Cleage
Directed by Jacqui Parker
Featuring: Patrice Jean Baptiste, Deannah “Dripp” Blemur, Inés de la Cruz, Yasmeen Duncan
March 20-April 12, 2026
The Lyric Stage
140 Clarendon St
Boston, MA
Online Playbill
Review by Maegan Clearwood
BOSTON — Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous poses one intriguing question after another. How can Black women make space for themselves within the canon of glorified, seemingly untouchable playwrights? What is the line between performance and exploitation? How can we forge connection across intergenerational feminist divides?
It also conjures up a potent image: a Black woman standing onstage, entirely nude, delivering monologues from the work of August Wilson, the most sanctified Black playwright in the American canon.
Unfortunately, these questions go largely uninterrogated, and the imagery takes shape entirely offstage.
Pearl Cleage’s play, directed by Jacqui Parker, takes place in a hotel room, an utterly untheatrical setting for a story that is so concerned with theatricality. Staying in the suite is Anna Campbell (Patrice Jean-Baptiste), a veteran actress best known for the above-described “Naked Wilson” piece. When Anna is informed that her artistic work has been recast with a younger, much less experienced performer, Pete (Yasmeen Duncan), Anna is forced to reckon with her legacy – and when she finds out that Pete is a burlesque performer and sex worker, her feminist values are suddenly put on the line.
Cleage’s script is bogged down with exposition, as the women clunkily recall anecdotes that are far more interesting than anything that’s happening onstage. The cast struggle to bring levity to this heavy script, particularly Inés de la Cruz and Deannah “Dripp” Blemur, who play Anna’s longtime manager and current producer respectively. Jean Baptiste and Duncan bring boisterous energy to their roles, but they are hindered by a script that rarely pushes beyond surface-level stereotypes of a vain, aging diva and a ditzy young beauty.
The set (Janie E. Howland) is hyper realistic, a neutral-toned hotel suite that looks like it’s ripped from the pages of a 2000s catalogue. The seating arrangements are plentiful but the staging is awkward: the women frequently talk over their shoulders at each other as they circulate from barstool to sofa to chair, an unsuccessful attempt to make the one-room setting more visually dynamic.
Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous is meant to be a comedy, but the production is unfortunately sluggish. There isn’t enough contrast between comedic and dramatic beats, and the pacing is bogged down by awkwardly long scene transitions.
More than anything, I found this production frustrating. Like Anna and the playwright, I have mixed feelings towards August Wilson’s portrayal of women in his otherwise gorgeous work, but the play barely engages with Wilson’s text beyond winking to the audience with references. I wanted to hear these bold, fabulous women grapple with Wilson’s lyrical words, but I was left unsatisfied.
Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous talks about feminism, but its own gender politics fall flat. For most of the play, I was on Anna’s side. I wanted her to perform her feminist swan song. The idea of an older Black woman taking up space onstage, fully, unapologetically nude, struck me as profoundly radical, but Anna’s feminism turns out to be disappointingly regressive.
Pete, Anna’s younger replacement, is set up to be a foil to Anna’s old-school feminism, but she is disempowered by the text. When she devises a seemingly new-and-improved take on August Wilson, it is utterly by accident, robbing her character of agency and growth.
Ultimately, Cleage’s script is overshadowed by the ghosts of the far more radical texts and politics that it claims interrogate. I left the theater wanting so, so much more.
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