I saw this play with the original cast on Broadway when it first opened. I was about 16 at the time. It blew me away. I had actually seen a few shows before that--my parents were always dragging us to some event in the city and most of the time we had no idea what they were "treating" us to. But this play knocked my socks off! I happened to be studying music myself at the time and the score just grabbed me by surprise and kept me riveted. During the intermission, I did not hesitate to cop the soundtrack album right there in the lobby. I still have it!!! I never really cared much for musicals back then but this one was clearly different. From the opening number, to the finale, "Put A Curse on You", well needless to say I never forgot the experience. The set, I recall was kind of like the voyeur set from Hitchcock's Rear Window. It actually set the audience in the courtyard of the inner city "projects" somewhere. You could see several floors of activity taking place sometimes all at once. In that way you really felt the energy, the stress, the hope, and the hopelessness of life in the black ghetto. You have to remember, this play opened at a time just after the riots of the late sixties. It was exhausting to watch. Come to think about it, now thirty-something years later, things haven't really improved all that much in those types of neighborhoods. But across that same span of time, Ain't Supposed to Die A Natural Death remains in my mind an absolute masterpiece. |