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"The piece takes us on an imaginative and challenging journey. Matlock's energized, vivid, and nuanced performance holds the center from start to finish. The Mammy Project is indeed a project - an open exploration of an evolving issue that is too complicated, and fascinating, to contain in a box."
Jason Jacobs, The New York Theatre Experience
"Writer and performer Michelle Matlock blows the lid off this century-old pancake box in her must-see one-woman show about a former slave named Nancy Green, who found everlasting fame as the smiling face of Aunt Jemima. There are scenes and images in The Mammy Project that will stick to your heart." Adrienne Cea, Off-Off Online
"Matlock's show is designed to travel and to provoke conversation. She invokes and troubles the images of actresses Hattie McDaniel, Louise Beavers, Whoopi Goldberg, and even Oprah, the latter once called "the corporate mammy" by a journalist. These women, Matlock asserts, supposedly paved the way for a world of greater showbiz opportunity. What she discovers is that no historical heroine is reducible to her residual image and that residual images die hard. Her inventive performance piece shares that discovery in a way that is always engaging, well-researched, and impossible to ignore."
Dorothy Chansky, The New York Theatre Wire
"In The Mammy Project, writer and performer Matlock has constructed a collage of the mammy and her many incarnations (both animate and inanimate). She uses her own experiences as a young actress to launch into the poignant biography of Nancy Green, the original Aunt Jemima of the ubiquitous syrup. With her deep, elastic voice and regal presence, Matlock is a born orator."
Amy Krivohlavek, Show Business Weekly
"In telling the story of Nancy Green, the first African-American woman to play the part of "Aunt Jemima," Matlock exposes the ugliness of a stereotype by humanizing its portrayer. In Matlock's nuanced and lively investigation of this little known figure in African-American history, the Mammy becomes more than a broad sketch of passive black domesticity. In the middle of Aunt Jemima's patter, the truths that go unspoken speak volumes."
Jessica Freeman-Slade, New Theater Corps
"The writing is also superb because it weaves ideas in such a way that it's not until you've fallen in the web that you get the immensity of the message." Liza Sabater CULTUREKITCHEN.COM
"Interpersing historical tidbits about Nancy Green - the first "Aunt Jemima" spokes-model - and a hip hop examination of the minstrel show in the context of American music alongside her own personal monologue about being typecast as a maid, Matlock pulls all sorts of theatrical tricks from under her oversized apron. . . . But is she effective? Yes." Christopher Tkaczyk, Show Showdown
Off-Off Online Pick of the Week, February 2007 |
"Matlock uses her prodigious skills as a performer and her background in clowning to create a performance piece that is insightful, moving and illuminating" ...culturebot.org
"The Mammy Project is a smart, funny and moving performance from a very talented actress." culturebot.org
"African American writer and actress Michelle Matlock straps on her apron and kerchief to recount the untold story of Aunt Jemima and her subsequent influence on the culture. The World’s Fair of 1893, the minstrel show, and early cinema will feature. We’re confident this re-examination of cultural history won’t be at all syrupy." Alexis Soloski, The Village Voice
"You will be intellectually provoked by Michelle Matlock's wit, politically afire by the shrewd use of her craft for commentary but, more importantly, you will be moved to laughter and tears by the deep level of commitment and compassion Michelle Matlock has" ...Liza Sabater CULTUREKITCHEN.COM
"Michelle Matlock is pissed. She's pissed that stereotypes persist. She's pissed that people are racist. She's pissed that people are not treated fairly." Jerry Portwood, Backstage.com
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