From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Power plays

Playwright and performance artist Will Power's hip-hop shows are theater for a new generation.

by Bob Weinberg

December 14 2005

Will Power is just as positive and determined as his name suggests. Talking by phone from his home in Brooklyn, N.Y., the hip-hop playwright and performer sounds almost giddy. Not only is he currently touring his one-man tour de force Flow, which was named Best Show of 2003 by The New York Times and comes to Miami Beach's Byron Carlyle Theater this weekend, but he's also anticipating the off-Broadway premiere of his work The Seven in February.

"I tell you, man, theater ain't for no sissies," he declares. "Wooo, buddy!"

Certainly, no one who has witnessed the lanky, 34-year-old actor and rapper in what he calls "performance mode" would question his vigor. His pre-show regimen for the physically demanding Flow consists of 40 minutes of yoga and vocal exercises. "And then, I just put it all to God and do my thing," he says, jokingly beseeching, "God, please help me!"

The multiple characters who populate Flow, from the neighborhood drunk to its oldest resident to a freestyle rapper, are based on people among whom the playwright grew up. However, Power says he's not as interested in "disappearing" into his characters as he is in using different personas to tell his tale.

"It's more along the lines of, like, Richard Pryor or Lenny Bruce," he explains. "They do different characters, but you always know it's Richard Pryor there. It's more about the stories and the jokes that they weave and the journey. It's the storyteller becoming this character, and that's very clear."

The word flow carries several connotations. On one hand, it describes the MC's art of seamlessly slipping words into a stream of beats. On the other, it describes an approach to life and its hardships that's often expressed in African-American music.

"A lot of the issues are what the blues and jazz musicians were dealing with," Power says. "It's just how we deal with them. The particulars and specifics are different, but the themes are real similar."

A popular fixture on the New York club scene, DJ Reborn supplies the soundtrack to Flow. She works a pair of turntables and provides all the sound cues for Power's kinetic performance.

"She's off the chain, man," the playwright says of his onstage collaborator. "Some of these places we go, they've never seen a female DJ before. It's so powerful, especially for the men, but for the women, too. The young girls are like, 'Oh my God, I didn't even know that was an option!' "

Born William Wylie in New York, Power studied his own options while growing up in San Francisco. Funk, jazz and the laid-back freestyle hip-hop often associated with the West Coast shaped his musical taste. He largely inherited his love of theater from his New York grandparents, with whom he spent summers.

Power is now firmly entrenched among the vanguard of playwrights -- including Danny Hoch, Rennie Harris and Miami's Teo Castellanos -- who are redefining the theater experience for a new generation. Without pandering, these artists have managed to create powerful works using the rhythms and language of today.

Such is the case with Power's The Seven. The show, which is based on Greek dramatist Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes, ingeniously marries ancient and modern narrative methods.

"You know how a DJ can spin a record from 1975 and mix it with a record from 2005?" he asks. "So basically, the DJ finds this old record with the text of Seven Against Thebes on it, and she starts playing it. And she starts telling a story through the record. And she samples the text and mixes it with hip-hop beats, and that's what I'm doing as a playwright; I'm sampling the text and I'm putting some original text within this new composition, this new play."

While the 11-person cast does include a five-person, hip-hop-style Greek chorus and characters sport Phat Farm togas and ride chariots pimped out with hydraulics, Power warns audiences not to expect a modern retelling of the ancient tale. Rather, he explains, the play takes place in what he calls a "fusion world" where the themes of the original play, which examines the curse visited upon Oedipus and his sons, are viewed in a modern context.

"I really was drawn to this question of a curse, whether that's like a mythological thing, like in this play, or a curse like, 'My father was an alcoholic, my grandfather was an alcoholic, and I'm wrestling with it,' " he relates. "So in this piece, I'm really exploring the idea of a curse. Basically, do we as human beings have the power to break a curse, or are we destined to fulfill the curse, to repeat history?"

Determined to keep live theater from becoming ancient history, Power realizes the importance of nonprofit arts groups such as Miami Light Project, which sponsors the annual Miami/Project Hip-hop. In addition to this weekend's performances of Flow, which MLP is presenting, Power will conduct free workshops for South Florida artists and students.

As he does in Flow, Power continues to explore the role of the DJ in The Seven. He also marvels at the expanding influence of hip-hop on a global scale and castigates listeners who have preconceived notions of what hip-hop can be.

"I'm in my mid-30s," he notes, "and some people who are my age are already starting on that whole, 'Awww, hip-hop's not like it was in my day!' I'm like, 'Man, that's a bunch of bullshit.' There's some incredible hip-hop right now. There's some wack stuff, too, but it's always been like that."

Will Power will present Flow at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Byron Carlyle Theater, 500 71st St., in Miami Beach. Tickets cost $15 and $25. Call 305/576-4350 or visit Miamilightproject.com.