Piecing Together 'The Break/s'

One-Man Show Is A Dynamic Mosaic

He's an African American man, with a son who's half Chinese and a girlfriend who's white. He's a middle-class poet and conflicted about success. He thought he'd be welcomed with open arms when he traveled to Africa, but instead he's robbed and alienated, watching a white female friend get the acceptance he had expected.

These are potent, painful dilemmas for hip-hop performance artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph, who lives through an identity crisis with no-holds-barred frankness and self-deprecating humor in his extraordinary show "the break/s: a mixtape for stage." But the marvel of his spoken-word performance at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater is that it doesn't wallow in the personal gripes. This one-man show isn't just one man's show; it's a thunderous, expansive and deeply felt wrestling match with being an American in the 21st century.

Joseph is a newcomer to the Kennedy Center, but not to Washington. He performed his previous productions -- the searing "Word Becomes Flesh" (2005), on the panic and rebirth he experienced as a new father, and "Scourge" (2006), on his Haitian heritage -- at the more intimate and informal Dance Place. The former National Poetry Slam champion has no trouble projecting to the far corners in this 90-minute ride on whacked-out dreams (an uproarious one centers on Prince, the Mona Lisa and a hot tub) and lively travels (to Japan, where he expects to be hailed for having authentic hip-hop oozing from every pore, and finds instead that "race does not matter -- I'm just another guy that might be a little bit too old to be at this club"). In fact, it's good to see that as Joseph has gotten bigger, he's gotten better. This show's impressively long credit list includes dramaturgy, choreography and a director (Michael John Garcés). Joseph speaks to us in front of three video screens and two musicians (DJ Excess and Tommy Shepherd a.k.a. Soulati).

"The break/s: a mixtape for stage" is not always easy on the ears; in the manner of the slam, Joseph is frequently angry, confrontational, loud and aggressive. He can be foul-mouthed and some of the scenes he describes are not for children. But there is a rough, raw beauty at work here, too, particularly when Joseph lets loose and dances, moving with muscular grace. No crazy B-boying here, but a fluid response to the beat and emotional richness not often seen in the more technical hip-hop performer.

Joseph's storytelling swoops around like a darting hawk, now fast and furious, now falling silent after a tense confession, now punctuated by an extended dance of reminiscence and regret. The whole is suffused by a sense of regret, and the desire to correct errors of the past.

Here's one example: If you could ask Jay-Z one question, what would it be? Joseph relates that he had that chance, a dozen years ago, as the 20-year-old editor of his college paper who snagged an interview with the rapper. But he got doped up on the way and remembers nothing of it. A brush with fame, gone in the flame of a lit joint! But that doesn't burn as much as the loss of his girlfriend in a different story, who wanted commitment when all he could give her was ambivalence over their racial difference. "She was the woman I wanted to come home to, but not always who I wanted to leave the house with," he says. Ultimately, "I chose my black ego over love."

References to the way-old-school Grandmaster Flash anthem are threaded through: "Don't push me 'cuz I'm close to the edge." At the end, about all Joseph can give us in conclusion is: "I'm an American, at the edge." It's one way -- a good way -- of gathering up the fragments.

"The break/s" repeats tonight.