When you see as much theater as I do, you can often see where things are going. Not so with
Barbecue at Mixed Blood Theatre. This play did something that theater rarely does - it surprised me. Surprised me in such a huge way that the play I ended up watching was not the play I thought I was watching at the beginning. Surprised me in such a wonderfully clever and challenging way that this post is going to be frustratingly vague and uninformative because I don't want to ruin that surprise for anyone. If you're intrigued, just go see the show and find out what I'm talking about. In addition to being surprising,
Barbecue is also really funny and asks some tough questions. Questions about race, questions about our assumptions about race, questions about how different races are portrayed in the media, questions about truth, questions about drug and alcohol abuse, questions about family relations. There's a lot going on at this little family barbecue, and this incredible cast pulls it off brilliantly.
