THE GOOD NEGRO (HUDSON MAINSTAGE): 86% – SWEET

Yetide Badki, Christoff Lombard and Rodger Bridges in “The Good Negro” at the Hudson Mainstage. Credit: Ian Foxx.

BITTERSWEET
Upward Bound’s production engages with some savvy writing and a few solid performances, but the splintered storytelling and a director’s questionable staging make this nearly three hour affair (including a fifteen minute intermission) decent instead of great.
Jesse David Corti – Stage and Cinema

BITTERSWEET
But this production labors to overcome a cast that as a whole hasn’t found its chemistry (a different cast performs on alternate nights).
Mindy Farabee – LA Weekly

SWEET
Under the direction of Michael Phillip Edwards, The Good Negro features dynamic dialogue, carefully story structure, and lots of seriously powerful performances.
Mia Bonadonna – LAist

SWEET
The staging is a bit awkward, the script a bit long and the lighting doesn’t add any depth, yet abled actors sell Wilson’s The Good Negro as a poignant, powerful story.
Darlene Donloe – Donloe’s Lowdown

SWEET
Although the performances are nearly three hours long (including intermission), I’d like to be able to find time to see the Blue cast as well as the Red cast.
Don Shirley – LA Stage Times

SWEET
In the performance I attended the acting was convincing and sympathetic—stunning at times—especially Hawthorne James as Claudette’s husband Pelzie.
Marilyn Tower Oliver – Los Feliz Ledger

SWEET
The Hudson Mainstage theatrical production The Good Negro provokes answers to these questions out of its audience, all the while still being funny, gripping and emotionally uplifting.
Forrest Wilson – LifeInLA

THE GOOD NEGRO
Upward Bound Productions
At the Hudson Mainstage Theatre
6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hlywd.
Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 & 7 p.m.; through Feb. 24, 2013
Tickets: $15-$25; (323) 960-7774