In its 48 years of presenting theater works rooted in the experiences of African-Americans, Penumbra Theatre’s linchpin relationship has been with playwright August Wilson. But the company has cultivated another exciting partnership over the past decade with playwright and performer Roger Guenveur Smith.

Best known as a staple of Spike Lee’s cinematic ensembles, Smith is also one of theater’s modern masters of the solo show, creating riveting dramas with minimal staging that invariably address the challenges of being Black in America.

In 2015, he brought “Rodney King” to Penumbra, morphing into multiple characters to explore a city’s reaction to several Los Angeles police officers relentlessly beating a man. Quite different in tenor was “Frederick Douglass Now,” which he presented at Penumbra in 2018, brilliantly channeling the 19th-century civil rights activist, mostly through Douglass’ own words.

Now Smith has returned to Penumbra’s intimate little theater in St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood to present a far more personal work. “In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat” is indeed about that groundbreaking neo-expressionist visual artist who also had a lot to say in his work about being Black in America. But this is the most intensely personal of Smith’s solo shows, far less a history lesson than a collage composed of snippets from Smith’s own experiences with his friend, Basquiat.

Roger Guenveur Smith performs his solo show, “In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat,” at Penumbra Center for Racial Healing in St. Paul Oct. 17-27, 2024. Written, directed and performed by Smith, an Obie Award-winning actor, playwright, and director, the one-man show honors his friend and collaborator Jean-Michel Basquiat. (Caroline Yang / Penumbra Center for Racial Healing)

It seems an appropriate approach, for Basquiat was never as conventionally representational as we expect a typical play to be. He first made his mark as a New York City graffiti artist before peddling his paintings on the streets and finding an audience that came to include the cognoscenti of the international art world. Today, his paintings are auctioned off for tens of millions of dollars.

But Basquiat hasn’t reaped those rewards, for he died of a heroin overdose at age 27 in 1988. While an aura of grief shadows Smith’s 50-minute monologue, this is less a eulogy than a compendium of Smith’s impressions of the artist, the audience thrust into scenes as if a phonograph needle has been dropped onto a record, the memories brief and evocative, but then suddenly over.

The stories make their strongest impression when the energy is highest, as when Basquiat asks Smith to recite Shakespeare while he dashes off painting after painting in an oceanside studio or when the artist pulls a jacket emblazoned with a confederate flag off a stranger on a nightclub floor and dances atop it. All are enhanced by Smith’s poetic descriptors, as when he speaks of Basquiat dipping his brush in blood or translating birdsong.

Yet you shouldn’t expect to learn a great deal about Basquiat and his art, for this is a more abstract work that leaves viewers to form their own impressions. That said, it’s a gripping piece of storytelling, delivered into a stationary microphone from which Smith never strays. His movement is minimal, and the only set is a backdrop on which artist Seitu Jones has placed the kind of seemingly scrawled crown that frequently appeared in Basquiat’s voluminous oeuvre. But the lighting of Wu Chen Khoo and the soundtrack assembled by Mark Anthony Thompson aid immeasurably in making “In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat” a masterful monologue.

Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.

‘In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat’

When: Through Oct. 27

Where: Penumbra Theatre, 270 N. Kent St., St. Paul

Tickets: $45-$20, available at 651-224-3180 or penumbratheatre.org

Capsule: While inspired by an artist, it’s Roger Guenveur Smith’s artistry that shines in this solo show.

Related Articles

Review: The updated Broadway take on ‘Some Like It Hot’ sizzles

Review: Chanhassen Dinner Theatres’ ‘White Christmas’ is the perfect holiday treat

Theater review: Children’s Theatre Company’s ‘Drawing Lessons’ a touching tale of art’s ability to heal

Theater review: St. Paul’s Park Square Theatre returns with expertly executed ‘Holmes/Poirot’

Review: The songs, not the story, are the draw for the Temptations musical ‘Ain’t Too Proud’