BLUES MEN

"Hang Time," by Zora Howard.

- VINSON CUNNINGHAM

In terms of its words, “Hang Time,” by Zora Howard, is a very subtle play. Its language is rich, and the themes that its characters usher forth chime suggestively, like harsh but precisely rung bells, never quite settling on a resolution. Its imagery, however, is awful and overt: even before the show starts, as the audience files in, three Black men are hanging in midair, their legs dangling, the motion of their bodies almost stilled. Walking into the small, dark theatre at the Flea and finding this scene is like happening upon the fresh aftermath of a crime. As the play gets going, it becomes like looking on helplessly— or, worse, passively, as a kind of entertainment—while a lynching ensues.

The stage direction in Howard’s script seems to make the matter of her setting even blunter: the play takes place “underneath an old, wide tree.” But in this production—directed by Howard, with scenic design by Neal Wilkinson—the actors are held up from behind by a metal contraption. No tree or other entity, living or dead, is visible above their heads. No ropes. Sometimes the men’s legs are free to sway, but a black platform periodically rises to meet their feet, enabling them to stand. The lighting design, by Reza Behjat, is stylishly minimal, and makes it so that the apparatus, black and glinting steel, is often nearly unseen. Maybe this is how we carry out a warning example of a showy death in the technological age: with machinelike efficiency and an iPhone’s sleek curvature and silence, leaving all those unfashionable knots and organic materials behind.