When The Colored Museum by the now legendary George C. Wolfe opened in New Jersey in 1986 and later transferred to New York’s Public Theater, the general census was that the play was revelatory.

Today, some nearly 30 years later, while the black cultural stereotypes and struggles at the play’s core are sadly as relevant as ever, some of the “exhibits” that make up The Colored Museum‘s structure haven’t aged as gracefully as others. In the just-concluded production of The Colored Museum at Cal State University, director Trevor Biship relies too heavily on the source material to dust off the few exhibits that are accumulating cobwebs.

In a series of satirically-biting vignettes that comment on African American history in the states, The Colored Museum attempts to present a product at once both emotionally penetrating and irreverent, aimed to both enlighten and hold a mirror up to its audience and their notions of black culture. It is meant to be, as George C. Wolfe has said, both “an exorcism and a party.” When that idea works, you’ll find yourself laughing the kind of laughs that get caught in your throat and these are the moments when the play is at its most successful, when it entertains you enough to get under your skin and then pulls the rug out from under you.

This is not to say that the subjects at the core of the more dated material are irrelevant now, unfortunately, but rather that the way in which they are presented here could use an updated and more current framework.

1986 may not seem that far away in the grand scheme of things, but in the context of a play that depends greatly on current relevancy, missing out on the reference of some key evolutions in black culture keep us more distanced than we should be. Our current president, for obvious reasons, doesn’t make an appearance here, though some sort of meta-commentary could be made if he were included in the show’s multitude of projections.

Unfortunately, the creative team perhaps thought that this would be too controversial and kept him out entirely. Likewise, having no scenes that explore black culture since the birth of hip-hop doesn’t do the show’s concept any favors. All the music we hear are the oldies.

Nothing much in the name of controversy there.

The black family drama vignette that satirizes both the play A Raisin in The Sun and the strange phenomenon of the “all black musical” is still relevant in its themes, but a lampooning of a Tyler Perry-style drama would be more in synch with the spirit of the times. Though the casting of a black man in drag for this vignette would have at least suggested this fact, the scene is played straight and suffers for it. The director would have to break some rules to make these scenes work, but here he plays the game by the rules. There are still successes to be had here, though they are more tied to the talented cast, than to the conceptual work or imagination of the director.

After appearing in one of my favorite plays of last year, Cal State’s own By The Bog of Cats, Deon Jones Jr. returns to the Cal State stage and really steals the show here. His portrayal of Miss Roj, a trans-disco-queen from NYC practically stopped the play in its tracks. Not only was his diction precise and his physicality empowered and convincing, but the emotional depth of his monologue practically overshadowed the entirety of the evening. I kept waiting for another moment to return us to the level of Miss Roj, but alas, it was not to be.

Andrea Ma Gee was transportive in all of her roles and had the best singing voice in the cast. Transforming from an old woman to a beautiful young girl in a matter of moments, she showed the greatest versatility on display here and nearly always nailed the style of satire Wolfe’s script asks for.

Up until her performance as Lala, Danielle Sappleton was killing it, but being asked to perform the most frustrating and confusing scene of the play without a clear idea or sense of direction proved to be a little hard to watch. Sappleton is a beautiful woman and a charismatic and dedicated actress but she may have been a little miscast in this last scene, one that I feel should be cut anyhow due to the strangely close thematic similarities it has to the scene just before it.

The rest of the cast were also uniformly excellent and a pleasure to watch, making for an ensemble piece in the truest sense of the word.

The set and lighting for The Colored Museum by Paige Bossier and Kelsey McGill were simple but evocative, adding just the right amount of theatricality to the work. The use of projections however were oddly placed in the theater and proved to distract us from the action more than complement it.

The Colored Museum is a great work for colleges due to its topicality, its educative themes, its shoe string budget needs and the multiple roles it provides for its cast. However, as a relevant work of contemporary theater, it asks for some production and directing choices with the same ballsiness of Wolfe’s original in order to keep it up to date. If Trevor Biship decides to tackle this material again, I recommend he keeps this in mind.