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New York Times

‘A Freeky Introduction' Review: Pleasure Principles

In 'A Freeky Introduction,' the writer-creator, NSangou Njikam plays a quasi-deity, M.C., holy hedonist named Freeky Dee. He is a poet delivering sybaritic couplets above the thrum of R&B tunes. He is a missionary preaching the gospel of freakdom: 'All of us are aftershocks of the Divine orgasm.' (The Big Bang, Freeky argues, was an explosive one.) The result is a sort of hip-hop hallelujah — a work of interactive theater that's funny and familiar in its embrace of Black culture, yet flattened at times by a lack of specificity. Freeky Dee is also a storyteller. He opens the show, now at Atlantic Stage 2 in Manhattan, with the tale of an eagle destined to fly, but born into a nest of bullying buzzards — a not-so-subtle allegory about one species that must resist the self-appointed superiority of another. Accompanied by DJ Monday Blue onstage, Freeky Dee is the sole performer who acts out these scenes, including his pursuit of a fine lady named Liberty ('French, with a splash of Africa' and wearing 'a crown that looked like sun rays coming out her forehead' — you get it). Njikam, who wrote and starred in the lively and semi-autobiographical 'Syncing Ink,' is a fan of salacious reinterpretations. Under Dennis A. Allen II's well-paced direction for this Atlantic Theater Company production, he delivers them with the charisma of a folkloric trickster. DJ Monday Blue's sounds and samples lend a rock-steady groove — a feast of R&B and hip-hop staples. Whenever Freeky Dee sets up for a spoken-word set, the standing bass and sax lines of 'Brother to the Night,' from the movie 'Love Jones,' ring out. It's a knowing wink — sonic choices that affirm Black cultural memory as its own special canon. Audience participation also becomes a form of communion for Njikam and Blue. At times, we're ordered to recite an affirmation-laden 'Mirror Song' or do kegel exercises in our seats. The show is always edging the sacred up against the sexual, which set designer Jason Ardizzone-West reinforces, adorning square columns with divine contradiction: half evoke West and North African etchings of figures kneeling in spiritual offering; while the other lean into smut — peach and eggplant emojis, thirst drops, figures on their knees for a different purpose. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.