[Libby-Castle-94]

http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/nyc/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003873587

NEW YORK CITY THEATRE REVIEWS  


Basic Training
October 13, 2008
By Ron Cohen
Kahlil Ashanti is a charismatic and immensely skilled performer. He endows his autobiographical solo show, Basic Training, with irresistible energy. His story centers on his service in the Air Force, where he became a member of its Tops in Blue entertainment unit, and on his search for his father. While never preachy, the script examines the oppressive racism pervading the culture both around and within the black community, meeting it with humor and resiliency.

Ashanti's tale begins as he is about to leave for service and his mother lets slip that the abusive man he grew up with is not his real father, but she withholds further information. His sympathetic uncle also keeps mum, and the idea of an unknown father haunts him until the show's succinct but touching conclusion.

The play itself, though affecting and credible, is not exactly the thing here. Rather, it's Ashanti's telling. As he moves through his straight-line narrative, he creates more than a score of characters with instantaneous definition and depth, including his caring mother, his abusive stepfather, foul-mouthed drill sergeants, Air Force buddies, and fellow entertainers. When they interact with one another, Ashanti almost convinces you there's more than one actor on stage. At one point he enacts a knock-down, drag-out fight among three people, and it's perfectly clear who's hitting whom. He accomplishes it all without a costume change and only one chair. The apt lighting, by Tyler Micoleau, helps define shifts in location and time.

Ashanti has been working on this piece for some five years, and it's copped awards at fringe festivals in Montreal, Vancouver, and Edinburgh. The work shows in a sure-footed polish that bristles with immediacy. Basic Training runs just a little more than an hour but without hesitation can be called a genuine tour de force.

...like we needed to be told, but I just wanted to share what the rest of the world is seeing what we've known all along!  Five days and counting 'til my 'Basic Training' experience!  Can't wait!!!!

[Kahlil Ashanti]

Thanks Libby!  Looking forward to seeing you in the audience.