Minus One

Minus One, Gyavira Lasana’s newest work, is broadly based on the life of the New Jersey born Black Nationalist LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka. The play spotlights Leo La Pard, a black poet who has broken mainstream convention by marrying a white woman during this period of heightened racial and political tensions (1958-1959.) Conversely, Leo seeks the acceptance in Harlem’s black bourgeoisie, a class that has always rejected him. Nestled deep below these two societies is the nether world of New York’s dark underbelly, where mistrust, violence, and inconsolable alienation mysteriously reside. Leo soon faces the insurmountable truth that his role in both the black and white communities is beyond salvage and tries to enter the underground to escape this reality.