Guthrie Theater

Mos Def jams on Guthrie Theater's 'Streetcar' set
by Tom Horgen, Star Tribune
August 23, 2010

It was an experiment of sorts. On Monday night, the Twin Cities' most prestigious playhouse and its music booker, Sue McLean, scheduled the first major hip-hop act on the Guthrie Theater's main stage. Which raised the question: What is audience etiquette for a rap show set inside an A-list theater? Do you sit? Do you stand? After all, this is the stage where Ian McKellen performed "King Lear" and Tony Kushner debuted his most recent play.

In Mos Def, McLean found a rapper tailor-made for this special, intimate experience. Aging gracefully at 36, the Brooklynite has been a leader in hip-hop's anti-establishment, but he tours infrequently -- maybe because he's become one of the genre's few acclaimed actors, starring in movies ("Be Kind Rewind") and on Broadway ("Topdog/Underdog").

About 875 people nearly filled the 1,100-seat Wurtele Thrust Stage, which bore the elaborate New Orleans tenement set from the current production of "A Streetcar Named Desire." Coincidentally, the gritty setting of Stella and Stanley's shoddy apartment worked nicely with Mos Def's songbook, which often focuses on social injustice.

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(Photo by Brendan Sullivan, Star Tribune)