You won’t find a local show that pushes hotter buttons than Darren Anthony’s Secrets Of A Black Boy. Nor, because of that, a show that gets a more immediate and exciting reaction from its audience.

Set in a Regent Park community centre that’s being torn down to make way for new housing, the play introduces us to five young black men who’ve come together to play a final game of dominoes and share their stories.

In the process, they touch on many of the issues by which they’re defined by society and, in some cases, by themselves. The characters offer views on gun culture, racial profiling by the police, sexual needs, gentrification, the cache of having a white woman on a man’s arm (this gets a big viewer response) and absent fathers. 

It’s possible to see Secrets as the male counterpart to Anthony’s sister trey’s ’Da Kink In My Hair, especially because of its similar writing style: episodes of dialogue flow into monologues that reveal character and also raise those controversial topics. No one offers a solution to problems; they just present questions and offer some widely held views. 

Anthony gives the material a nice balance of comedy and seriousness. He’s good at starting a scene with a laugh and then turning it in an emotionally powerful direction. His writing is strongest in the monologues.

Even so, this production is still finding its legs. Director Kimahli Powell has some good ideas, including choreographed episodes and moments such as that in which the slamming of a domino tile has the effect of a gunshot. But he could also give the show a faster pace and better blocking.

Some actors hold the stage better than others. Al St. Louis brings vibrancy to Sheldon, the oldest of the group and a kind of big brother to the others, and Eli Goree gives a suggestive quality to the well-to-do Jakes that alerts us to a few secrets he’s not yet ready to reveal. Samson Brown’s Biscuit, the youngest character, mines the comedy nicely and quickly becomes an audience favourite, while DJ O-Nonymous contributes an evening of solid beats.

The work and its issues are important and there’s no question it excites the audience, but it still needs some theatrical tuning.