Margin Notes: Try/Step/Trip

Try/Step/Trip

Seen on: Monday, 1/12/26.

The Los Angeles cast of Try/Step/Trip.
Photo by MarKing IV Photography.

Plot and Background

The Living Word Project presents Dahlak Brathwaite's non-linear interrogation of a young Black man's experience within a court-mandated rehab program, utilizing the language of hip hop, step, and spoken word--as part of the 2026 Under the Radar Festival. As "Anonymous" navigates rehab and the systemic external expectations placed on him by society for the intersectional parts of his identity, he must also navigate his own sense of self independent of these markers.

Thoughts:

Brathwaite's work is instantly kinetic, rhythmic, and engaging as he summons the ensemble from his place at the Conductor's station (a setup including keyboard, soundboard, and microphone). They jog out in perfect percussive synchronicity to the beat he's built, chased by the Conductor's spoken word introduction of the cyclical nature of his story and this performance, and it becomes clear to the audience that we're in the hands of a confident, polished, and virtuosic writer/composer/star. Anonymous, the younger version of the Conductor, lands himself in group rehab with the charismatic Samples, always on the verge of relapse; the self-possessed Mary, acknowledging her indulgences but committed to staying clean; Steve, a recovering cocaine addict and single white character, whose frantic energy is maintained with a new fixation of espressos; and Pastor, the group's leader and a firm advocate of religion as salvation from addiction.

Anonymous, after delineating a series of police aggression--stop and frisks over the years that yielded nothing--finds himself in rehab after finally being stopped while in possession of mushrooms. Though apparently not an actual addict, he enters the program to avoid prison because "we been locked up since the day we arrived" anyway. But what he learns is that his inescapable identity as a Black man in America subjects him to systemic proscriptions of that very identity, regardless of his actions. As he says, he "seems to be stuck in the same role/No one wondered why [he] was there./[He] was just playing the role." And in this framework, he is volleyed from law enforcement prejudices to the criminal court with a seedy public defender, to a group rehab where he encounters two men vying for the position of his mentor: Pastor, who wields his religion like a cudgel against a young man who never felt at home in the church; and Samples, who encourages him to embrace hip hop as a liberation, to embrace the tradition of being an American Black man descended from enslaved people. The sticky part of either of these conflicting credos is that Anonymous himself is the child of immigrants and a first-generation American. So any identity offered to him--be it a Baptist church, a hip hop artist articulating his generational pain, or a criminal waiting to be caught--does not truly speak to who he is, even as he tries on different identities in search of a truer understanding of himself.

While I've sorted this into a more or less chronological order, the performance itself jumps forward and backward among his childhood, his history before his arrest, his arraignment, his time in group, his growing relationships and understandings of the others in his group, and even a sense of the future before him, as embodied by the Conductor. The Conductor, cautioning his younger self that "In the future, you still hate structure/You still feel like it's telling you/What to do," he belies at least part of that sentiment with how precisely structured and sculpted Brathwaite's work is. Though at times the construction loses focus in its reversals and echoes, the overall piece is a gorgeous feast of joy, fury, yearning, introspection, and explosion, leaving the audience exhilarated and sated.

This exhilaration is enabled through the deft collaboration among director Roberta Uno, choreographer Toran X. Moore, and the gifted ensemble, each a powerhouse in their own right. Uno and Moore shape and guide the cast through the rhythmic beat changes, the switches from song to rap to spoken word to non-verbal step to finally a scene of untempered dialogue, all with the use of only Sim Carpenter's deft lighting and a set of metal folding chairs. And as the interpreters of this work, the cast is truly allowed to shine. Tyrese Shawn Avery infuses the central role of Anonymous with bright eyes and a guileless smile, offering an appealing earnestness balanced with his well-earned frustrations at being the perpetual playthings of systems hostile to his existence. As his obstacles seem more and more like immovable walls, his sweetly open nature gets clouded with a weary bitterness. As Mary, Jasmine T.R. Gatewood's soaring voice and ability to hold a stage whether dancing or stock still prove that she could carry a whole show on her back, given the chance. Her big number, "Life on the Edge," is not only a wonderful celebration of joy and agency, but also encompassing the same ecstasy that comes with drug use and other overindulgences. Max Katz, playing the odd man out Steve, shows himself to be an excellent comedian both in body and delivery, easily shifting posture and demeanor when he plays the public defender. And as the dueling mentors, Freddy Ramsey Jr and Dante Rossi as Samples and Pastor, respectively, bring beautifully contrasted but equally charismatic energies. Ramsey is all smoothness and confidence, eeling his way across the stage, a gentle smile on his face and no apologies in his mouth. Rossi, the bombastic Pastor dominates any moment he creates, aided not only by the actor's towering over the rest of the cast but also by his committed and soulful performance. We see the joy he gets at clowning as the judge, the self-righteousness of Pastor in him element, and the quiet grief at his own fall.

Dahlak Brathwaite, center-ish, and the Los Angeles cast of
Try/Step/Trip. Photo by MarKing IV Photography.

***

Running: Now playing at A.R.T./New York Theatres: Jeffery and Paula Gural Theatre (The Living Word Project/Under the Radar) - Opening: January 10, 2026. Closing: January 25, 2026.
Category: hip hop concept musical
Length: 1 hour, 25 minutes, no intermission.

Creative Team

Writer/Composer: Dahlak Brathwaite 
Director: Roberta Uno

Choreographer: Toran X. Moore
Designers: Sim Carpenter (Lighting), Saida Joshua-Smith (Sound), Cassiel Fawcett (Stage Manager), Katie Rosin/Kampfire PR (Publicity and Social Media Support).
Cast: Tyrese Shawn Avery, Dahlak Brathwaite, Jasmine Gatewood, Max Katz, Richard Perez, Jr., Freddy Ramsey, Jr., Krystal Renee, Dante Rossi