Ntozake Shange's "Spell #7" is black magic. It is a celebration of blackness, the joy and pride along with the horror of it. It is a shout, a cry, a bitter laugh, a sneer. It is an extremely fine theater piece.

The word that best describes Shange's works, which are not plays in the traditional sense, is power. Drama is inherent in each of her poetic sentences because the words hum with a vibrant urgency that shriek to be absorbed now, now, NOW! She writes as though there is not a moment to be lost and the nine players … deliver her ripostes to American life with a zeal that grabs and shakes the lapels.

The irony attendant upon being black in a white society is struck immediately…. [Player #1 provides the message:] You should rejoice in the richness that is yours even though it is different.

What follows is a...