The Bluest Eye

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On Sunday we saw The Bluest Eye at Hartford Stage. This is a stage adaptation of Toni Morrison’s novel of the same name. It was a tremendously powerful production, had a great cast, and obviously a very good director as well as a creative set designer. I recommend it to anyone. Looking around the nearly filled theater on Sunday (not usually not a prime time for attendance at Hartford Stage) it was obvious that the play has great appeal to African American audiences, but all of us who seek to understand racism in our country will benefit into this look at the psyche of African American folk in a white world. The protagonists are children, honest in their expression of their feelings and experience.

Their ways of dealing with a white world are very different, Claudia tears up and destroys her blue eyed and blond hair doll, while Percola wants to be that doll, someone no longer looked at as ugly and invisible.

Go to the Hartford Stage website to view two reviews, both excellent and far more descriptive than anything I could write, or better still run out and get tickets and see this outstanding performance yourself.