Apparently Tyler Perry is doing a movie of Ntozake Shange's prolific play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf.
I have mixed feelings.
The play is practically a rite of passage for any actress of color. I've been in two productions of it (playing Lady in Yellow in one and Lady in Orange in the other). Ntozake's words are timeless. They possess the power to affect those see it, and change the lives of those who perform it.
It's risky to put work like this on the big screen because of the temptations to make the work more palatable for broader audiences - smoothing the edges and diluting the message - when the jaggedness of the pill, and potency or her message are what makes her work prolific, specific and an agent of change in women of color.
I hope (pray) the film does her work justice.
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