Clybourne+Park+Critique+-+Adelman


 * Jonathan: Please take a look at the "Performance Critiques" page again. Most of what you've written is fine, except it focuses on the plot and story, leaving out much that might be said about the acting, staging, directing, costumes, lighting, props, etc. When you write about Hedda Gabler, please express your opinion about these particulars. Thanks. FR**

Jonathan Adelman Tuesday, October 7, 2014 Theater 2001 Clybourne Park Critique

This was a very thought-provoking play that showed the dichotomy between old and new racism. The play was well done, and I especially liked the abrupt switch between the mid 1900s and the present day, as well as the overlying themes that spanned both acts. However, there were a few things that I wish were done better.

The opening scene of both half’s did a very good job of expressing the current situation, both temporally and culturally. In the opening scene of the first act we see a nice, middle class house that is currently being packed up. There are boxes everywhere within this nicely furnished home, and we see the man of the house sitting in a chair eating ice cream and reading National Geographic. Bev is trying to talk to her husband, Russ, about trivial matters such as naming the capitals of different countries. Russ’s aloofness to his wife not only draws upon the gender-roles that are apparent in this era but also lays the foundation for the grievances that Bev brings up later with the priest. There is also a black maid in the house who is dressed in the classic maid outfit that has become synonymous with segregation. Though Bev is nice with the help, it is obvious that there is a world of difference between the two women. Bev repeatedly tries to give the maid a silver dish that she “never uses anyway,” however the offer is refused multiple times. This opening act exudes white (and male) dominance, highlighting the attitudes of the day.

In the second act we see modern-day looking people sitting around a table in a house that is currently under construction. There are men and women, whites and blacks, all sitting around a table discussing plans, though not very well at the beginning. They are sitting on lawn chairs around a door that has been used for a table, inside of a room that has been stripped down to the bone. Very cleverly, there is a bag of Panera bagels and coffee sitting on a table to the side. This connects very easily with the audience, and shows that some the people in the room are of middle/upper-class background and are in the modern era. The group is trying to have a discussion but people keep getting up from the table and doing other things. Throughout the entire act individuals constantly get up to get coffee or bagels from the corner, adding a sense of reality to the whole situation (the bagels are even real too! You can see the characters actually eating them.) What is missing from this opening act however is that overt racial distinction that was made at the very start of the play. The sexist attitudes are also gone, but this time replaced with a joke about one of the people being gay. It seems then that these two acts are very different from one another, however it turns out that they are almost the same expect for the time period in which they are occurring.

There are a few obvious facts that help the viewer tie both of these acts together. The first is that in both, the people debate about the capitals of different cities. We also slowly discover that the house in the second act is, in fact, the same house that we had just seen in the previous half. We also find out that the white couple’s lawyer is the daughter of a man and his wife from the first act, and that the black woman is a descendent of the original black family that bought the house. There is also a pregnant woman, references to skiing, and other subtle elements that persist in both acts. However the “meat” of the comparison is the juxtaposition of very similar attitudes but in different time periods.

One character that persists in both scenes is the Karl character. In the first act there is a character named Karl who is concerned about black people moving into his neighborhood. He tries to convince Bev and Russ to null their previous arrangement but Russ will not budge. Karl tries to make the argument that it is in the best interest of the neighborhood to keep it all white. He justifies his racism by saying that the black family moving in would not want to move into an all white neighborhood because it would make them uncomfortable. Karl’s true interest however is to protect the neighborhood from white-flight and to keep its white status, which will in turn keep property prices where they are. However he sugarcoats this with the fact that the black family would feel awkward, projecting his insecurities onto the black family. Karl also tries to ask the black couple if they would feel comfortable in a “neighborhood like this.” He tiptoes around the words race, black, or white, until finally he says it openly. He then tries to defend that he is not racist but merely looking out for the needs of community. This proves extremely awkward as the maid and her husband try to respond.

Similarly in the second scene the white male, Steve, who is about to buy the house does the same thing. As the black couple continues to talk about the “history” of the neighborhood, Steve says that they should stop beating around the bush because they are clearly talking about race. This starts a huge fight that leads to escalated tensions. The black couple thinks that Steve has called them racist, and this leads to a bitter battle. New Karl argues that whites are held to a higher standard because everything they say is scrutinized; he even protests that whites aren’t allowed to use the “n-word” even though blacks use it all the time. This again is an example of a white male projecting his personal grievances onto the black family, however in this act it is framed as an unjust double standard opposed to claims that the black family would feel awkward. By having the same stock character in both acts, the play ties attitudes that are prevalent today to clearly racist attitudes of the past.

Another stock character in both acts is the white-woman who tries too hard not to offend the black people in the group. In the first act, Bev constantly tries to make Karl stop asking the questions that are clearly, but not explicitly, about race to her maid. She even apologizes after the questioning to the black couple. Similarly in the second act Lindsey, Steve’s wife, becomes very sensitive about race. She tries to stop Steve twice from telling his joke that (like Karl’s original questioning) is clearly but not explicitly racist. She tries to constantly be extra-nice to the black couple in an attempt to convince them that she is not racist. She even says, “half of my friends are black” which leads the audience to put their face into their palms. Steve then challenges her to name these black friends, which Lindsey does very poorly at doing. Steve has, at this point, alienated himself from almost everyone and he then turns even more militant. He disregards the wants to keep the historical nature of the community and instead wants to build his big house on the land. While these and other parallels between characters are done very well, there are a few things that I believe subtracted from the overall play.

One element that the play lacked was a clear description of the state of the neighborhood in the second act. It is clear that it is no longer an all-white community but we are not told much more than that. It appears to be ethnically diverse but what does that mean? We do not know if it is majority white or black, what the socio-economic breakdown of the neighborhood is, or how long the people in the neighborhood have lived there for. All we know is that Karl moved out and that the house they are renovating originally belonged to the black family who bought the house from Russ and Bev. The absence of a description of the community is a key missing fact, which by not being answered subtracts from the overall play and __leads to many critical, unanswered questions__. However the one aspect that was the most confusing was the final scene of the play.

I must have missed something because to me the ending did not make any sense whatsoever. After the entire second act is shown in the modern era we get a flashback to Bev and Russ’s son’s final night before he kills himself. To me the suicide served two purposes in this play. The first, and most important, was to act as a catalyst for Russ and Bev to move out. The second is to cause more tension between Steve and Lindsey in the second act. That being said, I do not understand why they ended the play like they did. To me it seemed woefully out of place and did not further the play in any way. However despite this botched ending, I thought that the play overall did a good job making the audience reevaluate what we classify as racist, and to tie some very commonplace actions in our lives to more clearly racist actions of the past.