"Black and Blue is an unflinching tour de force, birthed from the immensely gifted mind of Jamar Gilbert. The actor, the writer, and the play contain multitudes: “One body. Many truths.” Gilbert gives credence to each one—each truth—individually, letting the many arguments breathe and boil off in a kind of socratic seminar of the soul."
“Words are hard to come by after watching the raw, emotional, and beautiful performance. It was brilliant to watch the craft of this beautiful human, but more important it was a real testament to humanity and an experience I will not soon forget.”
“What bought tears to my eyes is the subject matter and seeing someone that looks like me do what I want to do and doing it soo freely! Art has no boundaries but it’s does have connections in which we all can coexist in!! Witnessing a diverse audience share the same air , the same experience within those theater walls, the same silence , the same introspection…was captivating!!”
Black and Blue is a collision of voices that have lived inside me for years—clashing, echoing, and demanding to be heard. They rose loudest during the Black Lives Matter movement… scratch that—during my whole life.
This solo show unpacks the question that’s haunted me forever:
How do I survive in this skin?
How do I live in it, love in it, walk through America in it—this Black skin that has never come with a manual?
To make sense of the noise, I gave the mic to four of the loudest voices in my head. A bitter elder. A fiery radical. A weary Black cop. A wide-eyed child. Each one fighting to be right. Each one trying to be free.