The Fall of Heaven
In non-musical theater, without the assist of rhythm and rhyme, words are first, last, and everything.
Walter Mosley's 'The Fall of Heaven' makes everyone's job--- actor and audience alike--- both deceptively simple and inconveniently challenging because of the arrhythmic and orchestrally unassisted words he uses to inflame, to inspire, and to unify a severely damaged society, all in the beat of a fleeting moment.
"You don't," Mosley's leading character, Tempest Landry, complains to Heaven after being wrongfully but conclusively shot 17 times, "take no scared white boys can't tell the difference between one black man and another, give 'em guns and let 'em run around the streets of Harlem, and then say it's a accident one day when they shoot down a innocent man."
And Mosley astutely allows only the briefest rest before he has Tempest lament, "The accident was me being a black man, out in the open."
Once you stumble upon Mosley's timely and compelling lyrics, you simply can't rationalize turning your back on its unique kind of music.
Walter Mosley's 'The Fall of Heaven' makes everyone's job--- actor and audience alike--- both deceptively simple and inconveniently challenging because of the arrhythmic and orchestrally unassisted words he uses to inflame, to inspire, and to unify a severely damaged society, all in the beat of a fleeting moment.
"You don't," Mosley's leading character, Tempest Landry, complains to Heaven after being wrongfully but conclusively shot 17 times, "take no scared white boys can't tell the difference between one black man and another, give 'em guns and let 'em run around the streets of Harlem, and then say it's a accident one day when they shoot down a innocent man."
And Mosley astutely allows only the briefest rest before he has Tempest lament, "The accident was me being a black man, out in the open."
Once you stumble upon Mosley's timely and compelling lyrics, you simply can't rationalize turning your back on its unique kind of music.