By David Greenham

This superb Speakeasy Stage Company/Front Porch Collective co-production is emotionally charged and immediate, intent on keeping the material fresh and raw.

A Strange Loop Book, music, and lyrics by Michael R. Jackson. Directed by Maurice Emmanuel Parent. Musical direction by David Freeman Coleman. Choreography by Taavon Gamble. Scenic design by Jon Savage. Costume design by Becca Jewett,. Lighting design by Brian J. Lilienthal, sound design by David Remedios, and intimacy direction by Greg Geffrard. A co-production of SpeakEasy Stage Company and Front Porch Collective. Performing at the Wimberly Theatre in the Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, Tremont Street, Boston, through May 25.

Kai Clifton (center) and the company of A Strange Loop. Photo: Maggie Hall Photography

“What’s a strange loop?” Thought #5 (De’Lon Grant) asks the author, Usher (Kai Clifton), about halfway through this 100-minute musical. Usher explains that it’s a term that was first used by cognitive computer scientist Douglas Hofstadter, “and it’s basically about how your sense of self is just a set of meaningless symbols in your brain pushing up or down through one level of abstraction to another but always winding up right back where they started.”

A Strange Loop is Usher’s story — inside and out. At one point, he proclaims that the “self-referential” musical he is ruminating about is “about a Black gay man writing a musical about a Black gay man who’s writing a musical about a Black gay man, etc.” Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning musical is an explosion of ideas, reactions, obsessiveness, and fears. It makes you laugh as often as it makes you uncomfortable.

Usher, an NYU-educated gay man from the gospel South, deep in the Bible Belt, is making ends meet as an usher at Disney’s The Lion King. Later at night he is struggling with a battery of self-destructive Thoughts (Grant Evan, Davron S. Monroe, Jonathan Melo, De’Lon Grant, Aaron Michael Ray, and Zion Middleton).

Usher’s backstory and experiences are painful and often frustrating, ripe fodder for his Thoughts, which are relentless in punishing him. A Wendy Williams-type Thought (Monroe) stops by frequently to cut him down, “How U doing? It’s your daily self-loathing! And I had some time to kill, so I thought I’d drop in to remind you of just how truly worthless you are.”

Another Thought (Ray) represents the Guardians of Musical Theatre Centrism Tribunal who are “longing for the days when musicals were quieter and more centered around the lives and concerns of civilized, property-owning adults.” Usher is told by another (Middleton) to craft his musical’s story around slavery or police violence, “so the allies in your audience have something intersectional to hold onto.”

Don’t use the “n-word” in a musical — that’s the warning from a new Thought (Monroe). Usher is skeptical, but the Thought retorts, “I’m the chair of the Second-Coming-of-Sondheim Award so I know what the fuck I’m talking about.”

Kai Clifton (center) and the company of A Strange Loop. Photo: Maggie Hall Photography

Usher’s Thoughts also serve up an endless barrage of shaming and belittling dicta from his mother and father: the pair share terrible local gossip, reject his homosexuality, and predict he’ll be punished by God with AIDS.

What’s more, when Usher dares to suggest that Tyler Perry’s writing doesn’t reflect the lives of all Black people, the entire assemblage of Thoughts show up to protest, including Carter G. Woodson, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, the guy from Twelve Years a Slave, and Whitney Houston, all led by “Harriet Motherfucking Tubman” to blast him for “talkin’ bad ’bout Tyler Perry.”

Given the acidic zing of the show’s contemporary references, and Usher’s crushing encounters with Thoughts that are out to destroy him, his spirit is remarkably indefatigable. The character is consistently charming, touching, and sometimes hilarious.

As Usher, Kai Clifton gives a bold and vulnerable performance, skillfully modulating the character’s scattershot progression. This is a writer who tumbles along a destructive path, driven by the determination to be exactly the uncompromising spirit he was meant to be.

The ensemble of Evan, Grant, Melo, Middleton, Monroe, and Ray is slick. These figures come at Usher like a punishing tidal wave, making agile use of quick costume changes, distinctive physicality, and pinpoint timing.

This Speakeasy Stage and Front Porch Collective co-production is out to strike a nerve, to provoke theatergoers. Accordingly, the staging is emotionally charged and immediate, intent on keeping the material fresh and raw. Credit goes to the team of director Maurice Emmanuel Parent, music director David Freeman Coleman, and choreographer Taavon Gamble. The production flies by, but the audience is never left behind. Things never move so quickly that we don’t feel our hearts break for Usher. It’s also important to single out intimacy director Greg Geffrard. There’s a key sexual encounter that is graphic and effectively presented.

Jon Savage’s sparse but effective set, Becca Jewett’s fanciful quick-change costumes, and Brian Lilienthal’s sparkling lights are all well executed.

The only disappointment on the production’s opening night was the sound. It is unlikely the fault of reliable sound designer David Remedios, but the decibel levels between the band and the performers were uneven. On top of that, it seemed that some of the body mics were shorting out and words were lost.

The latter was a particular pity because Michael R. Jackson’s writing is biting, and sometimes brilliant. His lyrics can be incisive and amusing at the same time: “I don’t have AIDS and I don’t care about marriage, and I will never be pushing a loud-ass baby around in a carriage. No, I’ll just walk around with a scowl on my face like I’m Betty Friedan because the second-wave feminist in me is at war with the dick-sucking Black gay man.” For all its cultural bravado, its raising a cynical middle finger to the world’s “safe” versions of entertainment, Jackson’s script invigorates because it is not afraid to be deeply personal, to probe traumatic wounds. When Usher stands center stage, tears in his eyes, and sings “sometimes I feel so ugly, sometimes I feel so smart. Some people stand together. Me, well, I stand apart,” we root for him to succeed against all odds, internal as well as external.

David Greenham is an arts and culture consultant, adjunct lecturer on Drama at the University of Maine at Augusta, and is the former executive director of the Maine Arts Commission. He can be found at https://davidgreenham.com/