NIZE IT by Lynise Reedy and Matthew Worku. Factory Mainspace. Aug 9 at 7 pm, Aug 12 at 4:30 pm. See listing. Rating: NNNN
One of the strongest offerings to come to the SummerWorks Youth program by way of the Sears Drama Festival in recent years, Nize It – written and performed by students from Dante Alighieri Academy – is a hard-hitting look at growing up black in Toronto in the post-Ferguson era.
At the center of the story are pals Matthew (Matthew Worku) and Ramon (Ramon Sursona-Baltazar), two Black high-school students who negotiate their way around teachers, local drug dealers, unreliable family members and trigger-happy police to find time to work on Matthew’s creative passion: a comic book featuring a band of colourfully-styled quirky superheroes that spring to life in their studio hideaway.
The show very effectively tacks between bitingly-funny assessments of misguided mainstream attempts to aid the Black community, and stark renderings of the everyday brutality experienced at the hands of cops and criminals alike, capturing the burning frustration of systemic inequity but also offering moving glimpses of hope.