Chicago Escorts: So Hard to Put Into Words (and Music)

The Interlocutor introduces the classic minstrel show figures of Mr. Bones (Colman Domingo) and Mr. Tambo (Forrest McClendon), though the sassy thrust-and-parry associated with those archetypes is used only fitfully. Their chief job is to portray, with villainous leers, an assortment of corrupt white authority figures (lawyers, judges, guards). Even the boys’ eventual champion, the New York lawyer Samuel Leibowitz (Mr. McClendon), is also their callous exploiter.
In contrast the boys themselves are a fresh-faced lot, decent lads just out for a lark, riding the rails when they fall into horrendous trouble. (Their opening song is a gentle variation on all those wistful American hymns to train travel of the first half of the 20th century.) A rail-side fight among hobos in Scottsboro, Ala., brings the police, who discover two stowaway prostitutes, who in turn falsely accuse the nine youths of raping them. What follows are vignettes portraying the title characters’ trials and incarcerations, sometimes on death row.

See the full article from “New York Times”