#1
Posted: 3/27/12 at 11:22pm
Caught Clybourne Park on Broadway tonight and it irritated me even more than I remember it doing so off-Broadway. With all the awards and critical praise this thing has received I just don't get what all the fuss is about. Perhaps I don't have enough white guilt to truly appreciate it? (In keeping with the spirit of the piece I should clarify that that was only a joke and not in any way a racist remark.)
All of the dialogue rang so false to me; afterwards a friend asked if I could see that bunch of people, in either era, sitting around talking the way they did. I answered, no, but I can see a playwright sitting around and writing dialogue thinking he was capturing realistic, revealing dialogue.
For those not familiar, the play takes place in the same house. In the first act it's 1959 and in the second it's 2009. Slight spoilers will follow in this paragraph. Act One concerns a white family who is moving out of the house. The neighborhood association is concerned because a Black family has purchased the house and they're worried about what it will mean for the neighborhood and property values. Act Two shows the neighborhood has become primarily Black and was riddled with crime and drugs during the 70s and 80s. Now a white couple wants to buy the house and the Black community is opposed to the gentrification.
There are so many aggravating things about the writing to me. Why will none of the characters leave the house in the first act? Frank Wood, who gives a fine performance, insults and yells at every house guest and yet they continue to stay and continue the conversation. He tells the pastor to "fukc off" repeatedly, and stays for iced tea.
We have to listen to SO many tangential conversations; it takes forever for any character, save Wood, to get to the point of what they're trying to say. If everyone did speak plainly the play would be over in 10 minutes.
I think the author is trying to show that a lot of racism isn't overt, but creeps into our thoughts in subtle ways. Basically what Avenue Q presented in a clever 5 minute song this play stretches into a tedious play. For example, 1959 Christina Kirk plays a housewife with a maid, Crystal Dickinson, who she claims is one of her good friends. Dickinson reveals she has three children, but late in the act Kirk wishes her TWO children well and Dickinson has to correct her. I guess she was nothing more than the help after all! Gee we just got some insight into her character, now didn't we?!
The unbearable thing about act two is that no one is able to finish a sentence. It's a scene from a Woody Allen movie where everyone talks over everyone else. Except in his films those scenes last two or three minutes. This is nonstop for an hour.
In act one someone brings up that a Black family wouldn't fit in the neighborhood because Black people don't like to ski. Naturally the Black man in the second act recently went skiing in Zurich and the white guy doesn't even know how to ski! Annie Parisse's character isn't racist because she has Black friends (never heard that one before). She even dated a Black guy once.
For the record I don't have a problem with an of the actors. They're all good. It's the material I didn't like. It's masquerading as something new, and the premise certainly holds promise, but in the end I found the "lessons" on racism as after school special as the ones in Memphis. Well, almost as obvious as the ones in Memphis.
Sorry to rant, but I thought it was exasperating and I'd like to know what gives with the love for this play?
PS- There was one really funny joke in act two where all the characters are going around telling racist/sexist jokes trying to offend each other. Dickinson tells this one about white women: What do white women and tampons have in common? They're both stuck up c*nts.
All of the dialogue rang so false to me; afterwards a friend asked if I could see that bunch of people, in either era, sitting around talking the way they did. I answered, no, but I can see a playwright sitting around and writing dialogue thinking he was capturing realistic, revealing dialogue.
For those not familiar, the play takes place in the same house. In the first act it's 1959 and in the second it's 2009. Slight spoilers will follow in this paragraph. Act One concerns a white family who is moving out of the house. The neighborhood association is concerned because a Black family has purchased the house and they're worried about what it will mean for the neighborhood and property values. Act Two shows the neighborhood has become primarily Black and was riddled with crime and drugs during the 70s and 80s. Now a white couple wants to buy the house and the Black community is opposed to the gentrification.
There are so many aggravating things about the writing to me. Why will none of the characters leave the house in the first act? Frank Wood, who gives a fine performance, insults and yells at every house guest and yet they continue to stay and continue the conversation. He tells the pastor to "fukc off" repeatedly, and stays for iced tea.
We have to listen to SO many tangential conversations; it takes forever for any character, save Wood, to get to the point of what they're trying to say. If everyone did speak plainly the play would be over in 10 minutes.
I think the author is trying to show that a lot of racism isn't overt, but creeps into our thoughts in subtle ways. Basically what Avenue Q presented in a clever 5 minute song this play stretches into a tedious play. For example, 1959 Christina Kirk plays a housewife with a maid, Crystal Dickinson, who she claims is one of her good friends. Dickinson reveals she has three children, but late in the act Kirk wishes her TWO children well and Dickinson has to correct her. I guess she was nothing more than the help after all! Gee we just got some insight into her character, now didn't we?!
The unbearable thing about act two is that no one is able to finish a sentence. It's a scene from a Woody Allen movie where everyone talks over everyone else. Except in his films those scenes last two or three minutes. This is nonstop for an hour.
In act one someone brings up that a Black family wouldn't fit in the neighborhood because Black people don't like to ski. Naturally the Black man in the second act recently went skiing in Zurich and the white guy doesn't even know how to ski! Annie Parisse's character isn't racist because she has Black friends (never heard that one before). She even dated a Black guy once.
For the record I don't have a problem with an of the actors. They're all good. It's the material I didn't like. It's masquerading as something new, and the premise certainly holds promise, but in the end I found the "lessons" on racism as after school special as the ones in Memphis. Well, almost as obvious as the ones in Memphis.
Sorry to rant, but I thought it was exasperating and I'd like to know what gives with the love for this play?
PS- There was one really funny joke in act two where all the characters are going around telling racist/sexist jokes trying to offend each other. Dickinson tells this one about white women: What do white women and tampons have in common? They're both stuck up c*nts.
Marie: Don't be in such a hurry about that pretty little chippy in Frisco.
Tony: Eh, she's a no chip!
Updated On: 3/27/12 at 11:22 PM
