Single Black Female

The title of Lisa B. Thompson’s play is a tad misleading. This effervescent series of vignettes and monologues should really be called Single Black Bourgeois Female, since the challenges the characters face are inextricably linked to their class.

Soara-Joye Ross and Riddick Marie play a lawyer and a teacher, respectively, along with a variety of other characters—meddling family members, horny construction workers—as they talk about the problems they face in finding a man, particularly an African-American one. Statistics are quoted (black women are less likely to marry than their white counterparts), quips are delivered (“This isn’t Sex and the Inner City”) and cures for singleton sorrow are offered (apparently shopping and eating works for ladies of every background).

Thompson’s heartfelt and presumably autobiographical piece premiered in 2006 at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre and the current incarnation features the same cast and director, Colman Domingo (currently appearing in Passing Strange). Consequently, the performances are well-honed, with jokes hitting their marks. If only the material itself were as focused. When SBF gets subversive—a gag about a slave suffering from a yeast infection is uproarious—it flashes sharp, well-manicured claws. The playwright also shines in wistful mode, such as when Ross recalls her educated mother and working-class father’s relationship. But between these two extremes, the script consists of cultural punch lines meant to inspire only head nods and “you go girl”s. It’s great that Thompson’s holding up a mirror to a segment of society that’s usually invisible; too bad the reflection is so two-dimensional.