RACE is a must see. It talks about America's elephant. It is real. It is contemporary. It talks straight forward and with a brutal honesty about racial perceptions. David Mamet wrote about what people think about but don't say. This is one of Chuck Smith's best directions.
The story is about a wealthy white man accused of raping a black woman. He challenges it and settles on an integrated law firm to represent his case. The lawyers played by Marc Grapey and Geoffrey Ownes and Tamberla Perry discussed the perceptions and the racial issues of the case. The setting is in the lawyer's office. They discuss the legal, racial and social perspectives of the dynamics of the case and how they will represent and win. This is the dynamic. The disucssion is honest. The perceptions are real.We hear from a liberal white lawyer. We hear from a hip Black lawyer. We hear from a Black woman on how they think this will play to the jury. The guilt or innocence of the wealthy white man gets lost. Questioned is justice. What is it? How do we argue and win, is the question. How do we present is the task for the lawyers. They go through a pro/con on whether to accept the case. The audience goes through an intellectual exercise. This is a story on how law is really practiced and racial perceptions.
As I watched the play, I became the angry black woman. Wondering how many black women have been through this with no justice at all. Wondering if progress has been made because there was a time when a white man raped a black woman and she could not go to court about it. It happened and so what. Just last year we had headlines from the situation in New York where the Frenchmen "raped" a black woman in a hotel room. He was wealthy and powerful. He was challenged, disrupted for a brief period, but eventually freed. The case is the same.
The play is provocative. It discusses encoded messages. It discusses exploitation. It discusses white privilege of the upper crust. It discusses sterotypes. It discusses the soul of racism. It discusses sex and race as one of the same. It is powerful and will cause you to examine yourself. It theater at its best. Its real.
It appears at The Goodman Theater until February 19.
Click on the link to see what theater goers are saying about this hot play.
http://www.goodmantheatre.org/season/Production.aspx?prod=126&gclid=CLGdt8zA3K0CFc3DKgodgjAMoA
Filed under: African American, culture
Tags: Chuck Smith, David Mamet, Geoffrey Owens, Goodman Theater, Marc Grapey, RACE, Tambrla Perry
Hermene Hartman
2 weeks ago