Jeremy O. Harris, Before and After “Slave Play”

[Voter]

Posted: 9/18/23 at 4:07pm

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/09/25/jeremy-o-harris-before-and-after-slave-play

 

A lot of interesting tid bits in here. Interested to see what others take away from this 3 year spread

[BoringBoredBoard40]

Posted: 9/18/23 at 4:31pm

boy my brain melted from reading that.

he really is a piece of work. 

[quizking101]

Posted: 9/18/23 at 4:37pm

Jeremy O. Harris is basically the Fran Leibowitz of theatre. Very little actual output, but is so inflated with self-importance and ego that someone somewhere thought what this guy needed was a three-year long profile in the New Yorker.

He actually reminds me a lot of Toby Darling in “The Inheritance”…ironically, the play that to which he lost all the Tonys.

Even my friends in the theatre world aren’t really that fond of him and mostly just roll their eyes at his antics.

[JasonC3]

Posted: 9/18/23 at 4:41pm

I appreciate him a bit more than I did before after reading the additional information about some of his formative experiences.  Thanks for sharing the link.

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 9/18/23 at 4:42pm

How incredibly offensive to the absurdly talented Fran. Yikes.

 

[Kad]

Posted: 9/18/23 at 4:46pm

I will be forever baffled by how quickly he was catapulted to such a level of celebrity with Slave Play and maintained it even after a total lack of great follow up work when so many other young playwrights never get such opportunity even after impressive debuts. 

[Voter]

Posted: 9/18/23 at 4:50pm

1. Did we ever get that Slave Play HBO documentary or did I totally miss it?

2. I'm inclined to side with Young Jean Lee objecting to seeing a student stage a rape onstage (not pointing out the theatrical context to make this point). JOH's decision to release the transcript as a play truly burned a lot of bridges there.

3. Reading this if I was that teacher I would've been irritated:

"They met because of Harris’s insistence, in New Haven, on spreading his presence far beyond the confines of the drama school: he was known to drop in on photography critique sessions and to speak up, offering references and suggestions. “A lot of people thought he was part of the photo program,” John Pilson, one of the program’s longest-serving faculty members, said. “By the end, we all expected to see him every week.”"

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 9/18/23 at 5:00pm

Kad said: "I will be forever baffled by how quickly he was catapulted to such a level of celebrity with Slave Play and maintained it even after a total lack of great follow up work when so many other young playwrights never get such opportunity even after impressive debuts."

"Celebrity" is a generous term, but I think it has to do with his multihyphenate nature (playwright, screenwriter, TV show contributor, co-producer, performer, fashion-person, activist), his willingness to combat critics and make incendiary comments (in the press, in the industry, online), and the fact that he's a flamboyant and outspoken queer Black man in an industry where that's not the norm. Above all he is quotable, and when you're quotable and willing to give a hot take about anything, the media will lap it up. (See also: Barry Diller, Paul Schrader, Anthony Scaramucci.)

He wants to be in the spotlight, whereas a lot of other people prefer the spotlight to be on their work. HE is more of a story than any work he has actually produced.

In his small corner of the world, he may be developing a persona of "person who is famous for being famous"... the Kardashians, the Gabors, etc.

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 9/18/23 at 5:27pm

An exhausting human (and an amateur writer) I want nothing to do with.

[Voter]

Posted: 9/18/23 at 5:29pm

We haven't gotten a new JOH play since Slave Play, right?

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 9/18/23 at 5:41pm

Voter said: "We haven't gotten a new JOH play since Slave Play, right?"


We’ve had several and they’ve been absolutely dreadful.

[Kad]

Posted: 9/19/23 at 12:21am

Voter said: "We haven't gotten a new JOH play since Slave Play, right?"

Daddy at New Group was on the heels of Slave Play, as was a brief, “surprise” run of a play called Black Exhibition at the Bushwick Starr, which I found incoherent and incomprehensible and very reminiscent of a lot of bad plays I saw at the NY Fringe festival years ago when I had a gig reviewing them. But since then… nothing. An announced work at Playwrights Horizon was set for 2020 and sidelined by COVID and not rescheduled. The Public commissioned him as well and nothing has yet to materialize. 
 

To his credit, he’s using his money and clout to produce. He seems more built for that than for being a playwright, since he doesn’t seem to have written much once he got out of grad school.

[hearthemsing22]

Posted: 9/19/23 at 5:51pm

*Whine whine whine* *description of what he looks like for no apparent reason???* *whine whine whine* 

 

[JSquared2]

Posted: 9/19/23 at 7:55pm

quizking101 said: "Jeremy O. Harris is basically the Fran Leibowitz of theatre. Very little actual output, but is so inflated with self-importance and ego that someone somewhere thought what this guy needed was a three-year long profile in the New Yorker.

He actually reminds me a lot of Toby Darling in “The Inheritance”…ironically, the play that to which he lost all the Tonys.

Even my friends in the theatre world aren’t really that fond of him and mostly just roll their eyes at his antics."

 

One big difference -- Fran is entertaining.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 9/20/23 at 11:49am

Kad said: "I will be forever baffled by how quickly he was catapulted to such a level of celebrity with Slave Play and maintained it even after a total lack of great follow up work when so many other young playwrights never get such opportunity even after impressive debuts."

"You gotta get a gimmick." He knows how to work a room, and this is no small skill. He is clearly well read, intelligent, charming and disarming. Although, I'm not a huge fan of his work or his enfant terrible persona, I think that is far from the whole story. I think he is a creative person who works connections to lead to other opportunities. He is willing to model, act, teach, write. I think this is inventive and that is commendable. He will survive this way. Celebrity has changed over the years. Not the same game it was before. He knows how to play it. 

I think it was telling that when he was dismissed from an acting program, he would no longer call himself an actor, but referred to himself as a playwright before he had written anything. I think the ability to self actualize such a thing and get a play to Broadway shows he has gumption. I actually got the impression from the piece that he doesn't really love writing. I got that impression from his instagram as well. He seems to procrastinate a lot. and seems melancholy about the process unless he can do it on his own terms. I think being a hired writer for a series isn't in his wheelhouse. He likes to write what he wants to write about. But all artists prefer that. 

I do appreciate his challenging of gatekeepers at a University. What makes them the judge and jury? I find people who push back against authority very admirable. 

He gets a bad rap as being a jerk, but in all the interviews I've seen with him he is very warm, very funny, very excitable and engaged. He is kind and challenges respectfully. I think he would be great to talk to.  

 

 

[verywellthensigh]

Posted: 9/20/23 at 1:40pm

In agreement with Betty.  So he's an enfant terrible.  So what?  I was horrified and challenged by Slave Play but I was also struck by the fact that I haven't seen a play that explores sexual desire as that chaotic and dangerous since Williams (another gay playwright people wished would just shut up and live in the shadows).

I missed Daddy, but I found it interesting how it was murdered here but relatively well received in London.