ODODO [Musical/Africa/Period/Race]
B: Joseph A. Walker; M: Dorothy A. Dinroe; D: Joseph A. Walter; CH: Syvilla
Fort, J.A. Walker; S: Edward Burbridge; C: Dorothy A. Dinroe; L: Ernest Baxter;
P: Negro Ensemble Company; T: St. Marks Playhouse (OB); 11/17/70-12/27/70 (41)
Tonice Gwathney, Marilyn B. Coleman, Roxie Roker.
An episodic recreation of black history, from Africa to
Harlem, dealing with the ever-present fight for the recognition of the Black
person’s dignity and rights as a human being.
To some white reviewers the tone was blatantly and
offensively militant and racist. On the artistic side, the negative reviews
ranged from calling it musically “dreadful,” as Martin Gottfried declared, and uncreative,
to clichéd and unprofessional. Clive Barnes, who castigated Ododo (the Yoruba word for “truth”) as
anti-white, nevertheless managed to find in it the elements of “a good show,”
its message “beautifully written propaganda,” and its music “apt, evocative,
and . . . exciting.” Brendan Gill held it to be a failure, despite effective
elements, but Dick Brukenfeld paid homage to it as “a warm, virile, life-affirming
show, . . . an evening to savor.” He disputed Barnes’s assertion that it was
anti-white, declaring it instead “anti-American—anti what is dead and dangerous
to this country.”
The cast included Ray Aranha, Garrett Morris, Roxie Roker,
Charles Weldon, and eight others.