Richard Vetere’s Powerful Black & White City Blues Opens the American Theatre of Actors’ 49^th Season

It begins with a tragedy and gets ever sadder from there. 32-Year-Old Little Guy (Joseph Monseur), his younger brother John John (Sam Cruz), and their friend Bobby (Jake Minter) are high on heroin and high on a rooftop, deliriously plotting a drug deal that they think we take them to even loftier places. But this euphoria is a smack-fueled illusion, and reality strikes abruptly and violently. Now Little Guy is without a sibling and consumed with a guilt that competes with his addiction to destroy him.

Black & White City Blues depicts the Williamsburg Brooklyn of 1971, where the streets are mean and bleak. Weary Detective Lucy Cortez (Anita Moreno) is suddenly working solo after her partner had decided he’d seen enough despair and retired to Florida. As she investigates what happened to John John, she is shadowed by Village Voice reporter Burke (Wasim Azeez), who sees a great story; Burke becomes so obsessed with making a name for himself through the tragic circumstances that he dooms himself to becoming just another part of them.

Little Guy longs for the existence that he saw depicted on TV in his childhood, where everyone was happy and any problems were solved in 30 minutes. “No one is lonely on TV,” is a mantra repeated through the play. This of course is a lie, as potent and damaging as the heroin he can’t kick. He alternates between trying to get clean (becoming one of the “straights”) and wondering if it might be better to succumb. The people he associates with are all living harrowing existences, while actively trying to make money off of them. Delilah (Amber Brookes, who also directs) is the addicted, broken prostitute haunted by memories of her toxic father; Bernice (Gary E. Vincent) is a barfly trying to find glimmers of joy and self-actualization amidst the dread. Piranha (Riyadh Rollins) is the most powerful and dangerous person in the neighborhood, a pimp and a drug dealer who the others try to stay on the good side of. Bobby and Delilah, in particular, are enablers on Little Guy’s road to destruction; he’s literally of more use to them as a junkie. But even as Little Guy searches for a way out, he continues to be literally haunted by John John, who even in death holds a devastating secret that just may lead to Little Guy’s breaking point.

As the only person actively trying to save Little Guy, Kevin Leonard is poignant as Mr. Wellman, a former addict now counseling him and helping him get clean. Wellman also has drug-related tragedy in his past, and like Little Guy, the guilt is always with him, affording no rest or peace.

We really get a sense of the world closing in on Little Guy and his doomed community, as any sign of hope is quickly cast aside by the false promise that heroin keeps dangling in front of them.

Though Little Guy is the focus, every character gets an aria, a moment in the spotlight to tell their story, and the cast collectively astonishes in bringing the heartbreaking tale to life. The actors give a brutally realistic depiction of addiction and withdrawal, while being utterly compelling and truly sympathetic to the very end.

The production is stylishly directed by Brookes and makes excellent use of the space to depict a city of ruins occupied by desperate people. (Of particular note is the clever use of a backlit door depicting the silhouettes of first sex, and then suicide.)

Brookes’ team includes Dustin Pazar as Assistant Director/Production Manager, and Jake Smith providing Lighting Design.

Black & White City Blues is an incredibly moving, impactful, and astute observation of the frailty of human existence that is not to be missed, and will stay with you long after the lights go out.

Note: This play portrays violence, scenes of intimacy, and drug use and paraphernalia.

Black & White City Blues runs at the American Theatre of Actors through January 19, 2025.