With a Deaf protagonist, ‘A Strange Loop’ finds more resonance and dissonance

DC Theater Arts: The opening number of Michael R. Jackson’s musical A Strange Loop has always plunged me into a dizzying mirror world: I watch cruel reflections of myself as a queer man of color in the theater, and then the people staring back at me transform wildly. The musical opens with Usher, who introduces himself as a fat gay Black man attempting to write a “BIG BLACK AND QUEER-ASS / AMERICAN BROADWAY SHOW.”