2024 - 3rd Play - Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris
From left, Frank Wood, Christina Kirk, Annie Parisse, Jeremy Shamos, Damon Gupton and Crystal A. Dickinson in Playwrights Horizons’ production of Bruce Norris’s “Clybourne Park.”Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
For some reason, for this I’ve been reading all hard copies of plays, and apparently I bought a handful of Pulitzer Prize winners! This is another one I’ve been wanting to read for a while. Another fascinating and sometimes cringe-y look at racial issues and more, including the willingness of humans to get ugly when they lose control.
Summary: “Winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award for Best Play, Clybourne Park is a razor-sharp satire about the politics of race. In response to Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, playwright Bruce Norris set up Clybourne Park as a pair of scenes that bookend Hansberry’s piece. These two scenes, fifty years apart, are both set in the same modest bungalow on Chicago’s northwest side that features at the center of A Raisin in the Sun. The first scene takes place before and the second scene takes place after the events of A Raisin in the Sun. In 1959, Russ and Bev are moving out to the suburbs after the tragic death of their son. Inadvertently, they have sold their house to the neighborhood’s first black family. Fifty years later in 2009, the roles are reversed when a young white couple buys the lot in what is now a predominantly black neighborhood, signaling a new wave of gentrification. In both instances, a community showdown takes place, pitting race against real estate with this home as the battleground.” From Stage Agent.
Laura’s thoughts in brief: Well, I started flipping the pages slowly, then that progressed to very quickly in both acts! This play is rooted in racial tension due to being a response to A RAISIN IN THE SUN, and that is quite clear, but Norris is skewering so many other things as well - classism, misogyny, ablism, marital discord, and MORE. No one is safe in either act, and both start quietly with a lot of underlying tension and end explosively with almost everyone behaving very badly. And yet, it is quite funny. Until it isn’t. It reminds me of WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINA WOOLF? with racial tensions and more bodies added to that (wonderful!) hot mess. By the end, things (mostly words) are flying around so fast, it was hard to keep track of who was attacking who, but I knew that NO ONE would go home happy. And no character comes out unscathed by the playwright, including the one Black couple (in both acts). Reading about all these flawed humans was fun, but I think watching it and enjoying the unraveling of everyone onstage would be delightful (and definitely cringe-y - the playwright does not spare the audience the terribly awkward moments). It also reminds me of the ending of Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins’ family drama APPROPRIATE, where tensions build until everyone explodes and loses control. Horrifying, yet incredibly exciting to watch. I think as an actor I’d love to be part of that. This play was written in 2010, and a lot has changed in the world since then, although the tensions and lessons hold true today. I did think it was ironic (terrifying, upsetting?) that one of the reviews from Time Out - London in 2022 had a point from their other-side-of-the-Atlantic perspective: “In 2010 Norris’s thesis was that whether or not it voted for Obama, white America was essentially racist. But to put it bluntly, with America currently umming and ahhing over whether it wants to become a fullblown fascist ethno-state, points that felt stinging in 2010 feel quaint now. Yes, Steve is thoroughly obnoxious and has delusions of persecution that might well have grown into full-blown MAGA-ism given another ten years. But he is a considerably more sympathetic human being than any given Trump supporter you’ll see on any given American news programme.” Ouch. But, please, LET’S DO THIS PLAY!!!
READ MORE! Here’s what others had to say about other productions:
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2011/feb/09/clybourne-park-review
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/nyregion/clybourne-park-at-long-wharf-theater-in-new-haven.html
https://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/clybourne-park-review