Maxwell doesn’t get along well with his father and neglects his son Tony.
But then Maxwell (Emerson Brooks) is in the closet at his high-powered job, and drinks too much, which is why he’s having problems with his white husband Charlie (Randy Harrison) – whom Bartholomew seems to object to because of his race. This is the story that the title seems to be about. Grandfather Bartholomew (standout Keith Randolph Smith) has terminal cancer, which causes constant pain, and leads him to want to end his life in a physician-assisted suicide, which his son Maxwell opposes. The characters in “…what the end will be” are faced with enough conflicts to fill several plays.
But “…what the end will be” ultimately doesn’t deliver on its implicit promise to create more rounded characters. It is certainly refreshing to witness their expressions of familial affection, and the appealing cast provides some engaging moments of humor and pathos. If it’s hardly unusual of late to see Black queer male characters on stage, the unlikely situation of three generations of them in a single family promises a fresh context. In Mansa Ra’s new play, three generations of Black gay men live under the same roof – grandfather, father and son.
