to be a young black woman in the modern world. The play addresses the physical and emotional violence that is committed against women of color as well as addressing all women’s potential to triumph over the pain of rejection, brutalization, and devaluation. The essence of the play, Shange has noted, is contained within its title. The rainbow, which follows a storm, suggests the opportunity “to start all over again with the power and the beauty of ourselves.” The play, which Shange refers to as a “choreopoem,” is an exploration of people’s lives and offers hope to women who have endured the harshness of the storm.

The play begins with a plea to echo the song of the black girl’s possibilities. The subsequent panorama of African American characters and their behavior, customs, and language includes poems about an eight-year-old girl in St. Louis, Missouri, who falls in love with the idea of Toussaint L’Ouverture, a prostitute who “wanted to be a . . . wound to every man,” a lonely black woman imprisoned in the six-block universe of Harlem, and a high-school girl who deliberates on the question of surrendering her virginity “in a deep black buick/ smellin of thunderbird & ladies in heat.” Other sketches include an ashamed woman’s abortion, three friends who share the affections of one man, and a woman who almost loses her stuff—her body, her soul, and her spirit—to a worthless man. The “sorry” poems depict rambunctious street humor, as women mock the men who exit from their lives while the men provide myriad weak alibis for their inexcusable treatment of women.

Some noteworthy poems underscore the richness of the play. These include “now i love somebody more than” and “i’m a poet who,” which address the urgency of music and dance in the lives of black women as means to ventilate their repressed anxieties. Equally remarkable is the poem “latent rapists.” This work is about date rape and voices the concerns of women who are afraid to press charges against rapists who have been friends and who are men that hold prominent positions. Another poem deserving recognition is “a laying on of hands,” which centers on self-love, self-empowerment, and sisterhood. “a nite with beau willie brown,” perhaps the most powerful sketch, commands attention for its portrayal of a maniacal woman-beater who drops his son and daughter out of a fifth-floor window because the mother of his children, whom he has battered, refuses to marry him.

The characters in this play are seven nameless African American women dressed in dance costumes with long skirts that are each a different color but are otherwise identical. The skirts are the colors of the rainbow, plus brown. Each character is identified by the color of her dress: lady in brown, lady in yellow, lady in purple, lady in red, lady in green, lady in blue, lady in orange. The women take turns presenting poems that illustrate what it means to be young, black, and female—and thus triply oppressed—in a white patriarchal society that forces black women to fend for themselves. Mistreated and abused, these characters suffer tragedies that include rape, abortion, unrequited love, battery, and the murder of their children. They find strength within their individual and collective selves to recover after being assaulted and to improve the quality of their lives. To this purpose, these women become self-absorbed after being frustrated by the significant men in their lives, for whom they were too self-sacrificing, too self-effacing, and too submissive. These ladies resolve that no man shall again tyrannize them. Apprehensive of experiencing physical and emotional abuse in subsequent relationships, the women become independent of men. These ladies articulate the deepest pains of their individual lives and then unite to ward off their mutual adversaries and authors of their grief. Shielded against men, these women console their “sisters” as they share their personal struggles for integrity and autonomy.

In commiserating with one another, the women experience both a communal and an individual discovery of their value and power. They gradually realize that they are survivors of monumental adversities who did not succumb to mental breakdown in the wake of life’s crises.

The lady in red provides a case in point. She enumerates the many methods she used to get a man to love her. The man did not return her love, though he used her to satisfy his lust. When the lady in red dissolves the exploitative relationship, her metamorphosis into an individual who values herself becomes apparent. Summarizing the ordeal, the lady in red says

this waz an experimentto see how selfish i cd beif i wd really carry on to snare a possible loverif i waz capable of debasin myself for the love of anotherif i cd stand not being wanted when i wanted to be wanted& i cannot soi am endin this affairthis note is attached to a plant i’ve been waterin since the day i met youyou may water ityr damn self

Lady in blue offers another narrative that exemplifies the survival of the black woman and her ability to regenerate after victimization. This woman speaks of the myriad excuses black men give black women for their inexcusable behavior. These men, who are unable to provide love, intimacy, and security because of the paralyzing effects of subjugation in the United States, perpetrate emotional and physical abuse against the women in their lives and then attempt to placate them with apologies. The lady in blue is exhausted with her lover’s apologies and suggests that battered African American women cultivate enough self-love to protect themselves and, if necessary, to survive without their abusive men. Her closing statement reflects the intensity of her intolerance of men’s vain apologies:

i loved you on purposei was open on purposei still crave vulnerability & close talk; & i’m not even sorry bout you bein sorryyou can carry all the guilt & grime ya wannajust dont give it to mei cant use another sorrynext time you should admityou’re meanlow-downtriflin& no count straightsteada being sorry alla the timeenjoy bein yrself

Lady in orange, in reflecting on her experience with heartache, gives another example of the black woman’s ability to rebound from adversity. This woman has used music as a panacea for her pain, explaining, “i can make the music loud enuf/ so there is no me but dance/ and when i can dance like that/ there’s nothin cd hurt me.” The music is no tonic for her lover, who is obsessed with another woman whom he had left but returned to several times. To salvage her pride and to regain her self-respect, lady in orange kills her love for the man who trifled with her affection.

In the same vein, lady in purple chooses to “linger in non-english speakin arms so there waz no possibility of understandin” to ensure her own survival against a man who could destroy her. Lady in purple’s deliberate involvement with someone she knows cannot comprehend her suggests that she finds protection against hurt in the inability to communicate the mutual needs and expectations of her lover and herself. Having not voiced their mutual desires, the couple cannot be disappointed when the needs are not met.

Lady in green squanders her love on an indifferent man but averts annihilation the moment she realizes her self-bereavement. Exclaiming “i want my stuff back/ . . . you cant have me less i give me away,” she reclaims her self-esteem and rebuilds her life. Her statement “i gotta have me in my pocket/ to get round like a good woman shd/ & make the poem in the pot and the chicken in the dance” testifies to her self-possession and to her readiness to contribute to life.

Lady in brown pays the choreopoem’s only positive tribute to a black man, in the person of Toussaint L’Ouverture. To an eight-year-old narrator, he is a combination of the Haitian liberator and the friendly black boy who symbolizes audacity and strength. When lady in brown accepts the companionship of a boy named Toussaint Jones, she remarks,

i felt TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE sorta leave me& i waz sadtil i realized TOUSSAINT JONES waznt too differentfrom TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTUREcept the ol one was in haiti& this one wid me speakin english & eatin apples

Lady in yellow summarizes the black woman’s predicament: “bein alive & bein a woman & bein colored is a metaphysical/ dilemma.” Her statement emphasizes the determination of African American women to rise above the brutality of men and the women’s effort to cope in a universe that militates against their survival.

*Camden

*Camden. City in lower east-central New Jersey, about an hour’s drive south of Mount Holly; both towns are in southern Mercer County. Named in the second poem of the series, this area is home to working-class people, the majority of whom might attend trade and technical schools.

*Southern Boulevard

*Southern Boulevard. Thoroughfare in New York City’s south Bronx area that formerly had a large Hispanic population but still has several Hispanic dance studios. Real places, such as this, encourage audiences to believe the experiences expressed in the poems.

*Lower East Side

*Lower East Side. Neighborhood in New York City’s Manhattan that has historically been home to streams of immigrants who have found cheap housing in the neighborhood’s tenement buildings. The neighborhoods have traditionally been ethnically mixed, as are other neighborhoods mentioned in the poems in South Central Los Angeles and Upper Manhattan’s Harlem. By mentioning these well-known neighborhoods, the playwright shows that despite the minimal and abstract stage setting, the women discussed in the poems are true to life.

*Port au Prince

*Port au Prince. Capital city of Haiti, the black-ruled Caribbean island nation. It, like West Africa’s Accra and North Africa’s Tunis, is depicted in the poems as a stop along the historical routes that carried slaves from Africa to the New World. These places remind audiences of the historical events relevant to the lives of the characters.

For colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf is termed a choreopoem by its author, Ntozake Shange; the drama tells, in a series of twenty poems, stories of joy, pain, suffering, abuse, strength, and resilience of Afro-American women. The characters are seven women (or “ladies,” as they are called in the play), dressed in the colors of the rainbow plus brown. The choreopoem consists of the individual poems spoken by each of the women; each is intermittently joined by the other characters for a chorus effect.

The poems may be grouped into five categories, based on theme and subject. The first three poems explore the subjects of youth and love. At the beginning of the drama, the stage is in darkness, harsh music plays, and dim lights appear. The seven ladies run onstage from the exits and freeze in postures of distress. The spotlight picks up the lady in brown, who is the first to speak. She walks over to the lady in red and calls to her, but there is no response; then the lady in brown begins the first poem, “dark phases.” The poem starts on a somber note, explaining the pains and misunderstandings that mark the youth of a black girl. Then each character states that she is from outside a large metropolitan city: Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Baltimore, San Francisco, Manhattan, and St. Louis. The ladies join to sing familiar children’s rhymes. Subsequently, the lady in brown tags each lady, who then freezes; the lady in brown freezes as well. Next, they all begin to dance to “Dancing in the Street” by Martha and the Vandellas.

The lady in yellow recites the second poem, “graduation nite,” about a night of dancing and parties following a group of students’ graduation from high school. This night ends with lost virginity. The third poem, spoken by the lady in blue, is “now i love somebody more than.” A poem of gratitude for music, it attests the joy that music and dance bring.

The next group of poems expresses feelings of tension, pain, and rebellion. This group consists of four poems: “no assistance,” “i’m a poet who,” “latent rapists,” and “abortion cycle #1.” The first speaker is the lady in red, who recites “no assistance,” a poem of rebellion and disgust. Forcefully, the lady in red berates a lover who has failed to assist her in maintaining their relationship. Having taken the primary responsibility for maintaining the relationship, she is now tired; at the end, she returns her lover’s plant, which she had been tending. The lady in orange immediately begins the next poem, “i’m a poet who,” which declares that because she is a poet, she wants to write, sing, and dance and would rather not—in fact cannot—communicate with people any more. The other ladies join in a dance until a sudden flash of light stops them.

Following introductory lines from the ladies in blue, red, and purple, the lady in red recites the intense poem “latent rapists,” acknowledging the repulsive fact that a rapist is often a personal acquaintance of the victim. In such cases, rape becomes a harsh act of betrayal, difficult or impossible to prosecute. The lady in red is intermittently joined in this piece by the ladies in blue and purple, until an imaginary slap stops them. The lady in blue then begins the next poem, which presents the emotional as well as physical pain and shame that accompany the act of abortion.

The third set of poems—“sechita,” “toussaint,” “one,” “i used to live in the world,” and “Pyramid”—have historical, social, and political themes, references, and images. After the lady in blue finishes, soft voices call “sechita,” and the lady in purple enters to recite the lead-in to that poem. The lady in green enters and finishes the piece and then dances out. This piece evokes images of Egyptian royalty mixed with references to New Orleans “conjurin.” The lady in brown reappears for her most significant piece, “toussaint,” about her discovery of the leader of the Haitian slave rebellion, Toussaint-Louverture, through a library book. She was denied the prize for the colored child who read fifteen books in three weeks because the book came from the adult reading room; she was consoled, however, when she met a real colored boy whose name was Toussaint Jones. Next, the lady in red recites “one,” a bitter, discomforting, melancholy poem of seduction and remorse. The piece is a vivid portrayal of a glittering seductress, who turns into a “regular” colored woman who cries herself to sleep in the early hours of the morning. The next poem in this group, “i used to live in the world,” is recited by the lady in blue; it portrays a disconsolate person trapped in a six-block section of Harlem, which she calls her universe. The final poem in this group is about three women whose friendship is symbolized by the sides of a pyramid. It is again a seduction poem, but here the women are all seduced and betrayed by the same man; however, they remain together and comfort one another.

Sharp music introduces the fourth series of poems, entitled “no more love poems.” The ladies dance and then freeze before the lady in orange recites a poem about the need to be on the receiving end of love, even though the world considers her to be only evil, a bitch, and a nag. The lady in purple has the second poem in this love cycle, which discusses the feelings of pain and heartbreak experienced by women searching for someone to love them. In the third poem, the lady in yellow decries the unfortunate dependency of women on others for love; she is joined by the ladies in green and brown, who repeat vignettes about love for a chorus effect. All then sing and dance together, repeating in chorus proverbs about love. Afterward, the ladies dance together and fall, tired yet full of life and togetherness as a result of their shared experiences with love.

The lady in green extends this camaraderie with “somebody almost walked off with alla my stuff,” a lively, amusing poem that begins the fifth series of poems, which also includes “sorry,” “a nite with beau willie brown,” and “a laying on of hands.” The first poem is a lament for the spiritual and cultural assets that can be stolen by a false lover when a woman gives of herself. The lady in blue responds to this poem of the lady in green with an introduction to the next poem, “sorry.” The other ladies respond with comments on the use of the word “sorry” by unfaithful lovers; then the lady in blue continues the discourse with a longer discussion of the word “sorry,” emphasizing its misuse. The lady in red follows with the violent dramatic poem “a nite with beau willie brown.” Willie Brown is a crazed, drugged Vietnam veteran who commits emotional and physical violence against his girlfriend and his children. In the end, Willie coaxes his children away from their mother, Crystal, and drops them from a fifth-story window.

The final poem, “laying on of hands,” is one of restoration and affirmation. At the conclusion of the choreopoem, the lady in red asserts, “i found god in myself & i loved her . . . fiercely.” All the ladies say this line and begin to sing a soft song, which grows into a loud song of joy. They sing first to one another and then to the audience. At the climax of the drama, the lady in brown closes the choreopoem with lines that reflect its title and purpose:

& this is for colored girls who have consideredsuicide but are movin to the ends of their ownrainbows

For colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf uses dance, music, light, color, and language to demonstrate its meanings and highlight its themes. The colors of the rainbow serve to delineate and distinguish characters and to symbolize the beauty, vitality, and worth of women. Music and dance are used to express the mood of the characters and the intensity of the poetry.

Music, dance, and color are often used simultaneously by Ntozake Shange for dramatic effect. The stage directions specify that harsh music be played at the opening of the play as the women assume postures of distress. The upbeat song “Dancing in the Streets” is heard before the poem “graduation nite,” an exuberant celebration of youth, sexuality, and high spirits, recited by the lady in yellow. After this poem, the ladies join in singing children’s rhymes. Dance is used to symbolize life and vitality throughout the drama.

Sharp music is heard before the first of the “no more love” poems. At the end of this group of poems, the ladies dance again, this time until they fall from exhaustion, symbolizing their freedom and renewal in spite of failed love experiences with men. The choreopoem concludes with joyful singing and with the ladies in a closed, tight circle, sharing their joy and music.

Lighting also contributes to the dramatic effect. Since the play employs no scenery, props, or furniture, lights become the means of emphasizing and isolating each character. Throughout the performance, the ladies move in and out of the spotlight. Blue lights are used to highlight each lady as she enters the stage for the first time.

Obscenities and dialect are used in the play to focus attention on certain themes and to express forceful messages. Violent images are forced home through the use of blatant obscenities. Throughout the text, endings are left off words and vowels are sometimes eliminated; the play is a celebration of the expressiveness of black English.

Ntosake Shange’s “choreopoem” for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf is a dramatic spectacle structured around a series of poetic monologues and dialogues which examine the complex experiences of black women in American society. At its core lies a mission to give voice to the voiceless and to articulate the pains and triumphs of black women through poetry, song, and dance. Shange’s feminist text presents the pains of a sexist environment and posits liberation through the creation of a female collective voice. The poems are read by seven women, each wearing a dress that is one of the colors of the rainbow—blue, green, orange, purple, red, or yellow—plus brown. Alone, the women appear vulnerable and victimized, but collectively, as a choric voice, they gain strength and find the ability to discover a certain divinity and dignity in themselves.

The piece looks at several experiences of women, ranging from the confessions of a young woman about her first sexual encounter to the vivid and evocative description of a woman’s loss of her two children to the insane pathologies of her boyfriend. In between are stories about women who try to escape the squalor of their existence through dreams of being other than themselves (of being Latina instead of black) and through escape in fantasy. Confessions are important in this work, and the women are candid and explicit in their descriptions of abortion, date rape, and assault and abuse by men. The actors dramatize each story through the use of dance and stylized movement.

A stripper who dances for money in wrestling tents discovers that her way of escape from her squalid existence can only be through a fantasy of being an African goddess, an Egyptian icon whose dignity Shange celebrates. Her striptease act metamorphoses into the mystic dance of the Egyptian goddess Sechita. She makes the point that the stripper still possesses the capacity for dignity and beauty. Shange repeats this pattern in a later piece in which a woman declares to the world that someone has stolen her “stuff.” Her stuff constitutes everything that belongs to her as a woman, as a black person, as a human being. Her music, her dance, her language, her sexuality, and her capacity to love are all stolen from her by an individual who happens to be male. She expresses the loss in a language and style that is blues-like in its capacity for humor and self-reflective satire.

The women are sexually expressive and identify a close link between who they are and how they define their sexuality. They seek to demand sexual gratification despite the negative associations that may come with that demand and appear to have come to a cynical understanding of the deceit and hypocrisy of their male lovers. Yet the women remain committed to the dream of a genuine sexual and emotional relationship with a man. The collective thinking described here effectively pulls the women together.

At the end of the piece, however, Shange posits that any attempt by women to rely on men for security and a sense of self must be futile and misguided. The climactic story of Crystal and Beau Willie emphasizes this point. Beau Willie, a sympathetically drawn Vietnam veteran hooked on alcohol and drugs, manages to persuade Crystal to drop her guard even though she knows that he is inclined to abuse her and to act out his destructive selfishness. He grabs hold of their children, dangles them out a fifth-story window, and then drops them when she is slow in responding to his proposal of marriage. This act constitutes a powerful dramatic moment from which Shange must derive the potential for hope and possibility.

The women discover hope in a religious ritual in which they declare that they have found divinity in themselves, in their femininity, and in their collective strength. Shange not only offers a detailed examination of the lives of several women but also crystallizes, in the process, her singular vision and imagination through the infusion of her creative intelligence into the structure and form of the piece.

Ntosake Shange, whose work is frequently anthologized, remains one of the foremost American dramatists. Her piece for colored girls who have considered suicide constitutes one of the more important dramatic works written by an African American author in the late twentieth century. The play, commonly regarded as an articulation of feminist ideology from the perspective of a black woman, had an impressive and critically successful run on Broadway in the mid-1970’s and has been produced all over the world.

Shange’s achievement lies in her ability to demonstrate that the suffering of women can cross ethnic and racial lines. By reaching for elemental truths in the experiences of black women, Shange’s characters demand that audiences pay keen attention to the exposition of issues such as date rape, abortion, spousal abuse, poverty, prostitution, goddess worship, and female sexual liberation and aggression. The work gives credence to the idea that a black woman’s voice has full validity in the women’s movement.

Shange’s play posits a poetics of dramatic presentation that explores experimentation with form and content to create a structure that reflects the thematic intent of the piece. The choric patterns are central to the work and become metaphorical expressions of the need for women to find a collective voice in whatever they do. The dance, music, mime, and storytelling represent the common features of black culture and American women’s culture. Shange harnesses these forms and generates a play that defies easy definitions and classifications. As a feminist piece, it can be appropriated as a forthright articulation of the need of a movement of women to work against a strongly patriarchal world order. More critically, however, she opens the eyes of white feminists to the complexity of the movement because she opens their eyes to the world of black feminists. She simultaneously challenges both the assumptions of white racist society (which includes white feminists) and those of the patriarchal social structure (which includes black men).

The 1970s: Counterculture Yields to Skeptical Indifference
In the 1970s, persistent protests against the Vietnam War eventually led to a significant withdrawal of American troops, culminating in the Fall of Saigon in 1975. The conflict had drained billions of dollars from the U.S., cost 56,000 American lives, and damaged the reputation of the U.S. military. President Nixon's credibility would have been further tarnished by the war had it not already been compromised by the Watergate scandal. This cover-up failed as his aides, fearing prosecution, revealed Nixon's extensive and illegal spying operations on the Democratic party. Public trust in the government plummeted to an all-time low, and rampant inflation fostered a widespread sense of pessimism about the future. Many young people sought solace in the newly popular discotheques, dancing to repetitive, formulaic music that required little thought or creativity. Various forms of escapism became prevalent.

The Civil Rights Movement Meets the Feminist Movement
The Civil Rights Movement experienced internal strife between militant groups like the Black Panthers and Malcolm X, and the nonviolent resistance advocated by Martin Luther King, Jr. In contrast, the feminist movement was a study in contradictions. Barbie doll sales soared to new heights in 1963, even as women were asserting their right to reject unrealistic physical ideals. Twiggy, a model weighing no more than 95 pounds, epitomized the new antifeminine figure. Simultaneously, the popularity of hotpants and topless swimsuits led to more revealing women's fashions, while women resented being objectified as sex symbols. Miniskirt hemlines rose and then fell to maxi lengths in 1972, coinciding with many women preferring to be addressed as Ms. instead of Mrs. or Miss. Pantsuits began to replace mandatory skirts in many workplaces. The first black Barbie doll was introduced in 1968, the same year Shirley Chisholm became the first black female member of the House of Representatives. During this period of sexual upheaval, women's liberation included both a push for sexual freedom, facilitated by the widespread availability of the birth control pill in the early 1960s, and a rejection of sexuality as a defining trait of female identity. Divorce rates began to rise and continued to do so for several decades as women gained economic and social independence.

Sadly, both the Civil Rights Movement and the Women's Liberation movement failed to create a meaningful space for black women. This dynamic began to shift, in part due to Shange's play. African Americans, no longer called colored people, aimed to redefine their identity by embracing their African roots. Alex Haley's 1976 epic, Roots, significantly contributed to the popularity of African heritage and heightened many African Americans' interest in their own genealogies.

Lorraine Hansberry's 1959 play, A Raisin in the Sun, indirectly hinted at potential challenges in African American relations with Africans, especially for black women. In the play, Beneatha Younger adopts an afro hairstyle, wears African attire, and listens to African music. However, she rejects her African suitor and the idea of moving to Africa, choosing instead the more challenging path of becoming a doctor in a racially prejudiced America. Her struggle remains unresolved by the play's conclusion.

By the 1970s, black women's identities were still largely overshadowed by broader black and female identities. When Shange declared in 1976 that black women were oppressed, it wasn't a new revelation. However, her assertion that black women were also oppressed by black men (in addition to white society) was groundbreaking. Shange highlighted that black women occupied the lowest rung of the social hierarchy. The emerging women's movement intersected with the advancing civil rights movement to expose the double oppression faced by black women.

The expression of anger in for colored girls..., primarily directed at black men, caused a significant uproar in 1976. The journal Black Scholar published a series of debates on black sexism. Robert Staples articulated the shock some black men felt at the idea of black women turning against their racial counterparts. In response, black women accused Staples and others with similar views of ignoring the ways black men did indeed oppress their racial sisters. This debate lost its intensity over the next decade as black women began to find strength in their racial and gender identities. Ultimately, black women rose in social status, and by the 1990s, black men found themselves at the bottom of the social hierarchy. This shift led to the Million Man March on Washington D.C., organized by Louis Farrakhan in 1995.

Theater
Drama in the 1960s served as a platform for challenging norms and experimenting with innovative styles. The stage musical Hair, which debuted in 1967, introduced nudity, provocative language, and celebrated the hippie lifestyle, emphasizing personal expression and freedom over conventional middle-class values. This show shocked the nation during its highly controversial tour. In 1969, Oh, Calcutta, a series of erotic sketches, made Hair seem tame by comparison. Two years later, in 1971, Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar stirred controversy by blending religion with Broadway spectacle, achieving massive success despite some considering it sacrilegious. However, the rise of inflation in the 1970s slowed the momentum of experimental theater. One standout production from this period was The Wiz, an urbanized adaptation of The Wizard of Oz featuring black characters. The play premiered in 1975 and ran for over 1,000 performances. By then, audience interaction, open staging, unconventional costumes, and revolutionary content had become standard in theater. Musicals had evolved beyond the lighthearted romance typical of Rodgers and Hammerstein productions; now, audiences anticipated being shocked and challenged as part of their entertainment experience. In black theater, Imamu Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones) broke away from tradition by creating works focused on racial confrontation. Shange adopted a radical style that included slashes, lower case letters, phonetic spelling, and dialect, along with a militant agenda to make theater a hub for raising awareness about black rights and strengthening the black community. Baraka believed that theater was more effective at reaching a broader black audience than other media, while Shange (the second black female playwright to have her work produced on Broadway, following Lorraine Hansberry) demonstrated that theater could also effectively reach white audiences.

Choreopoemfor colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf is a choreopoem, consisting of a series of 20 individual poems choreographed to music. The performers both dance and narrate the poems. This is not merely poetry set to music with dance steps; it is a fusion of movement, gesture, and music that together form the choreopoem. Improvisation plays a key role, allowing the performer to adapt the presentation to her own emotions and the audience's response. Shange created this medium to carve out a new space for expressing black culture, free from the restrictive norms of European and American theater, as it resists conventional definitions.

Symbolism
As indicated by the title of the choreopoem, the rainbow is a central symbol in the play. This is intentionally reflected in the women's costumes, which encompass the colors of the rainbow along with brown. The inclusion of brown within the rainbow symbolizes black identity amidst the spectrum of existence. The rainbow itself represents the diversity of experiences and the various dimensions of identity. Shange articulated in an article by Mark Ribowsky in Sepia magazine, "The rainbow is a fabulous symbol for me. If you see only one color, it's not beautiful. If you see them all, it is. A colored girl, by my definition, is a girl of many colors. But she can only see her overall beauty if she can see all the colors of herself. To do that, she has to look deep inside her. And when she looks inside herself, she will find... love and beauty."

Monologue
The twenty poems of for colored girls were initially written and recited at women's bars in San Francisco before Shange decided to integrate them into a structured dramatic production. Consequently, each poem stands on its own and is often delivered as a monologue (a dramatic piece performed by a single actor) by one of the women, while the other performers observe, support, or act out the narrative. The collection of monologues, narrated by different performers (who are not fixed characters but assume various roles), provides a sense of multiple viewpoints and fragmentation. Nevertheless, each fragment enhances the others, creating a unified portrayal of black female identity.

Leitmotif
A leitmotif is defined as music that represents an idea, person, or situation. Throughout the play, musical motifs are prevalent. In addition to the music and dance central to the choreopoems, musical terms and references are used metaphorically to depict the experiences of "colored girls." These experiences transition from discord to unity as the play progresses. In the opening poem, expressions such as "half-notes," "without rhythm," "no tune," and "the melody-less-ness of her dance" paint a picture of awkward dissonance for young black women who have been deprived of their childhood. However, by the play's conclusion, all the women dance and chant together in harmony, having evidently discovered a rhythm that fully expresses their identities. Music also serves as a dangerous lure for women towards men. For instance, a virgin, while feigning sexual confidence and dancing to the Dells' "Stay," eventually loses her virginity to one of her dance partners. Conversely, music acts as a sanctuary from men, as suggested by the lady in purple when she remarks, "music waz my ol man." At times, music allows women to temporarily escape reality. Sechita, for example, finds empowerment through music, using dance to "conjure" the cracker men in the audience of a seedy carnival. Ultimately, music becomes an integral part of the harmony of black female identity.

1970s: Throughout the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, African Americans fought for equal rights to vote, work, and receive an education comparable to that of white Americans. During the 1960s, predominantly white women initiated the women's liberation movement. However, both movements largely excluded black women, who faced even greater challenges than black men in achieving equality in society.

Today: Louis Farrakhan's 1995 Million Man March in Washington, D.C. emphasized the need for black men to take on more responsibility within the black American family and to show the respect that black women, as depicted in Shange's play, have long sought.

1970s: Societal constraints and a slow-to-change culture severely limited opportunities for black women in fields like business, politics, and the arts. After Lorraine Hansberry's groundbreaking presence on Broadway, it took nearly two decades for Shange to become the second black woman playwright to debut on Broadway.

Today: Although black Americans, and black women in particular, still face significant challenges in achieving full equality in American society, many have made substantial progress. This progress is largely due to the trailblazing efforts of women like Shange, poet Maya Angelou, and politicians such as Barbara Jordan. Playwrights such as Anna Deveare Smith have greatly benefited from Shange's social and dramatic innovations.

for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf was broadcast on June 14, 1983, by the Public Broadcasting Service's American Playhouse. The production featured Patti LaBelle as the lady in brown, with music arranged by Baikida Carroll. LaBelle delivers a distinctly gospel interpretation of the play's music. Shange discusses the adaptation process in the February 20, 1982, issue of TV Guide, on pages 14-15.

The original Broadway cast recording of for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf was released by Buddah Records in 1976, under the catalog number BDS 95007-OC.

In response to the negative portrayal of black men in Shange's work, a group of inmates created a parody titled For Colored Guys Who Have Gone Beyond Suicide and Found No Rainbow: A Choreopoem/Drama. The authors—James Able, Harrison Bennet, Harry McClelland, John Mingo, Roland Robertson, and Baari Shabazz—were all members of the Writers Club at the Maryland House of Correction for Men in Jessup, Maryland, in 1986. Their play, which borders on misogyny, suggests that the challenges faced by black men stem from black women's lack of empathy for their struggle to survive within a racist sociopolitical system.

Further Reading
Baraka, Imamu Amin. "Black 'Revolutionary' Poets Should Also Be Playwrights," Black World, April 1972, pp. 4-7.
A call to action for black playwrights to utilize theater as a medium for advocating social transformation.

Brown-Guillory, Elizabeth. Their Place on the Stage: Black Women Playwrights in America, Greenwood Press, 1988.
An analysis of the impact of black female playwrights, with a section dedicated to Shange.

Sources
Barnes, Clive. "Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Opens at Papp's Anspacher Theater," New York Times, June 2, 1976, p. 44.

Cronacher, Karen. "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange" in International Dictionary of Theatre Plays, pp. 258-60, St. James, 1992.

Davis, Angela. "Ntozake Shange Interview with Angela Davis," Videotape, American Poetry Archives, The Poetry Center, San Francisco State University, May 5, 1989.

Flower, Sandra Holhn. "Colored Girls—Textbook for the Eighties" in Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 15 (1981), p. 52.

Harris, Jessica. "for colored girls... from Ntozake to Broadway" in New York Amsterdam News/Arts and Entertainment, October 9, 1976, p. D1.

Hooks, Bell. Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black, South End (Boston), 1989.

Lester, Neal A. "Shange's Men for colored girls... Revisited, and Movement Beyond" in African American Review, Vol. 26, no. 2, 1992.

Lester, Neal. A Ntozake Shange—A Critical Study of the Plays, Garland Publishing, 1995.

New York Times, June 16, 1976.

Olaniyan, Tejumola. "Ntozake Shange: The Vengeance of Difference, or The Gender of Black Cultural Identity" in Scars of Conquest, Masks of Resistance: The Invention of Cultural Identities in African, African-American, and Caribbean Drama, Oxford University Press, 1995.

Ribowsky, Mark. "A Poetess Scores a Hit with Play on What's Wrong with Black Men" in Sepia, December 25, 1976, p. 46.

Rich, Alan. "Theater: For Audiences of Any Color When 'Rex' is Not Enuf" in New York, June 14, 1976, p. 62.

Richards, Sandra L. "Conflicting Impulses in the Plays of Ntozake Shange" in Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 17, no. 2, Summer 1983, pp. 73-78.

Simon, John. "Stage 'Enuf is Not Enough" in New Leader, Vol. 59, July 5, 1976.

Smith, Yvonne. "Ntozake Shange: A 'Colored Girl' Considers Success" in Essence, February 1982, p. 12.

Tate, Claudia P. "Ntozake Shange" in Black Women Writers at Work, Continuum, 1983, pp. 149-174.

Timpane, John. "'The Poetry of a Moment'- Politics and the Open Forum in the Drama of Ntozake Shange" in Studies in American Drama, 1945-Present, Vol. 4, 1989, pp. 91-101.

Trescott, Jaquelme. "Ntozake Shange: Searching for Respect and Identity" in Washington Post, June 29, 1976, p. B5.