SOURCE: A review of Spell No. 7, in Plays and Players, No. 381, June, 1985, pp. 28-9.

Woddis critiques a production of Ntozake Shange's play Spell No. 7 performed by the Women's Playhouse Trust.

Ntozake Shange is nothing if not controversial. It's not so much what she is talking about, although that in itself crashes through boundaries, but the way in which she does it. Possibly not since Dylan Thomas's 'Under Milk Wood' can I remember a dramatic piece that played with language with such exuberance, and structure with such daring. 'Spell No. 7' takes risks not just because it is confronting racism and black identity in a culture dominated by the white face but because it does so through a loosely knit structure that breaks conventional rules and is reliant on the monologue for its major impact. Several voices at the interval the night I was there could be heard saying...