The fact that Jeffrey Wright looks entirely at home in a flowing powdered wig and eye-popping orange brocade waistcoat shouldn't really be a surprise. The title star of John Guare's A Free Man of Color has always been a chameleon, from his Tony- and Emmy-winning performances as the nurse Belize in Angels in America to a string of biographical movie roles, including artist Jean Michel Basquiat (Basquiat), Martin Luther King (Boycott), Colin Powell (W) and blues great Muddy Waters (Cadillac Records). It took a part written especially for him by Guare—the dandified Jacques Cornet, who lives a hedonistic life in New Orleans in 1801—to lure Wright back to the stage for the first time in five years. Guare’s comic epic mixes historical figures including Thomas Jefferson and Napoleon Bonaparte with the high-living mixed-race natives of New Orleans just before the Louisiana Purchase. Midway through previews at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater, Wright talked about the appeal of mounting an epic play from scratch, his long history with director George C. Wolfe and the part that fit him best.
What a wild ride this play is! What do you love about it?
It’s rare ...
Monday, November 15, 2010
Jeffrey Wright on Embracing His Inner Don Juan in A Free Man of Color
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