The quest for the great American race relations play continues with the Broadway debut of Clybourne Park. Bruce Norris, the playwright behind this 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner, has said that he wrote this play in conversation with Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. Indeed, the first half of Clybourne Park is set in 1959, the same year Raisin debuted on Broadway. Clybourne Park discusses race through the lens of gentrification. Though Norris should be admired for highlighting these issues on a national stage, the one-note portrayal of many characters in this play ultimately raise the question of whether it's even possible for a white playwright (like Norris) to shed light on race relations in a non-cliched, meaningful way.
Clybourne Park was critically applauded when it was first produced Off-Broadway. In addition to the Pulitzer, the Times called it "a spiky and damningly insightful new comedy." Funny, it is, but damningly insightful I take issue with. Clybourne Park starts out promisingly in 1959 as a white couple, Bev and Russ, (Christina Kirk and Frank Wood) prepare to move out of their quaint, single family home. Their day is interrupted as some neighbors, Betsy and Carl (Annie Parisse and Jeremy Shamos), come to warn them that word on the street has it that the buyers of the house are "colored." Carl goes on to try to convince Russ to sell to the neighborhood committee for moral reasons. After all, once one black family moves in, the white families will flee, driving down housing prices. Things get awkward as Carl insists on asking Bev's black maid, Francine (Crystal Dickinson) for her opinion.
Much of the racial tension in this first act is subtextual, perhaps reflecting the repressed emotions of the era. This works since it leads to room for ambiguity. Russ and Bev do decide to sell the house to the African-American family, but it's unclear how much of their decision is based on their colorblindness. Underlying their decision is the pain of their son's recent suicide upon his return from Korea where he was accused of killing civilians. The revelation of this secret adds some depth to Russ and Bev, and some insight to their current situation. Unfortunately, Bev is prone to some physical tics, which I found distracting. These physical tics are clearly attributable to the director and not the actress, but I can't figure out for the like of me why the director would want Bev to wave her hands around over her head every time she speaks. She also jerks her head back every time she's about to open her mouth. Maybe she is supposed to be drunk? Nonetheless, this first act is a complete story all to itself with well drawn main characters who have believable motives.
But the second act is rather useless once the initial conceit is exposed. As the curtain rises, it's 2009. We see the same set, but this time with graffiti covering the 50's wallpaper. Six people--the same actors in different roles--sit around in chairs. They are discussing the gentrification of the neighborhood--particularly two characters' impending desire to renovate the house into a McMansion. Isn't this neat, you think. In 2009, white people are trying to get into the same neighborhood that black people couldn't break into fifty years ago. The ensuing escalating arguments about race then show how conversations about race stay the same, even as political correctness has taken over. Message conveyed in about five minutes, the next forty-five are filled with gratuitous jokes that come at the expense of reducing each of the six characters into a stereotype.
Most stereotyped is the renovating white couple (Parisse and Shamos). She is the Whole Foods liberal armed with politically correct platitudes. "Half my friends are black," she remarks. Shamos plays the angry white man pissed that he can't say the N word when black people say it all the time. He spends most of the time trying to tell a racist joke, much to his wife's chagrin. Their black counterparts (Dickinson and Gupton) are no better. Dickinson plays a self-righteous protector of African-American culture. Gupton's character is the snide deflector of tense racial conversation. christina Kirk's deadpan portrayal of a one-upper lawyer is the most credible. When some characters mention a retarded man they know, Kirk responds "My niece has Asperger's." The banter is fun, but ultimately covers much of the same material that other plays about race address.
Earlier this season, The Submission by Jeff Talbott ran at the MCC's Lucille Lortel theater. This play about the consequences of a white man submitting a play under a black woman's name addressed issues of affirmative action and white privilege. In The Submission, Jonathan Groff played the playwright who was fed up with what he saw as affirmative action for women and minorities. He held many of the same attitudes as the white characters in Clybourne Park. Why couldn't he say the N word when black people can? His foil, the black actress he hires to pretend to be the playwright (Rutina Wesley), judges him for the distince lack of slavery in his family.
When it comes to race relations, these plays leave me wondering if it's possible to tell a meaningful story without resorting to angry white man, and angry black woman stereotypes. Is there a way to do it without resorting to once edgy racial jokes that have had their corners softened by overuse? Clybourne Park doesn't transcend these constraints. I won't be waiting with bated breath for a play that does.
