Bad Thoughts Make Good

A Strange Loop moves to Broadway, much to its own surprise.

IN THE COURSE of A Strange Loop, his “Big, Black, and QueerAss” Broadway show, Michael R. Jackson gives two explanations for the title. Of course there would be two—his stunning show is recursive, redundant, reflective, and reflexive. As Usher, Jackson’s composer hero, sits on a subway train explaining his own musical (also called A Strange Loop) to a stranger, he cites Douglas Hofstadter’s book about “loops” of identity-constructing self-reference. That checks out, you think. Loop is an Escher-esque musical by a gay Black man about a gay Black man writing a musical about a gay Black man writing about himself. “But it’s also the name of this Liz Phair song that I really love?” Usher tells the guy, flirting. “I was gonna use a bunch of her songs in the show, but then she wouldn’t give me permission.”

At breathtaking speed for an hour and 45 minutes, Loop continues waltzing on like this, the Big Ideas and the petty ones whirling around on Jackson’s profane, hilarious, meta-musical carousel. It’s less vicariously exhausting than it was Off-Broadway— perhaps because the company no longer wrecks itself physically with every performance— but it’s still furious with both the world and itself. The shock of that sharp emotion strikes like a lance, especially in the Lyceum Theatre: It’s a red-velvet-and-gilt balloon, and Jackson makes it go pop.