Ten Times New York Theatre Tackled Political and Social Issues in 2018

Sure, Broadway is traditionally known for its glitz and glamour, but New York audiences have never shied away from socially relevant theatre, either. And while controversial issues are more frequently discussed Off-Broadway, 2018 saw a great many political and social themes brought up throughout Manhattan's stages. So here are ten times New York theatre tackled political and social issues in 2018.

You couldn't come up with a more relevant story for 2018 than the plot of Quiara Alegría Hudes and Erin McKeowan's chamber musical, MISS YOU LIKE HELL, where Daphne Rubin-Vega, playing an undocumented Mexican-American mom who is facing deportation, tries rebuilding her relationship with her citizen daughter in order to prove to a judge that she's needed in this country. Particularly effecting was a scene set in Friendship Park, where a tall wall separates the two countries at the continent's west coast and extends into the Pacific Ocean. With access to the American side open to the public for only four hours on Saturdays and Sundays, this is a place where separated families make whatever contact they can through the wall's slotted openings. A character describes how a woman she meets has border brunch with her husband every Sunday, and how a child's birthday party is celebrated with family members eating cake on both sides. As the year progressed, Americans became more and more familiar with such stories.

Designer Rachel Hauck's set for Heidi Schreck's Pulitzer-worthy autobiographical performance piece WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME is based on the author/performer's memories of her home town's VFW Hall, with three walls of the stage covered with over 200 framed 8x10 photo portraits of middle-aged and older white men in their Veterans of Foreign Wars uniforms. It was in spaces like this that Schreck, as a 15-year-old, was judged on her knowledge of the United States Constitution by panels of men. That design took on added significance when, as the show was previewing, the nation witnessed Christine Blasey Ford's testimony accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault told before a similar-looking panel composing the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Early on in Christopher Demos-Brown's AMERICAN SON, there's a chillingly realistic moment perfectly played by Kerry Washington. Appearing as a frustrated African-American woman, convinced that the young, armed, white police officer she's alone with isn't revealing everything he knows about her missing son, Washington loses control of her temper and yells at him. "Stop screaming at me!" yells back Jeremy Jordan, playing the officer who seems confused and perhaps a bit disoriented. Suddenly, Washington's character realizes the situation she's in and, as if repeating a memorized script, lowers her voice, bows her head and apologizes for implying or suggesting any bad faith on his part. The audience has just witnessed a demonstration of what many African-American children are taught by their parents as the proper attitude to assume whenever approached by the police, believing that it has become their responsibility to convincingly display that they are not a threat.

After its premiere engagement at The Public Theater, Young Jean Lee began revising her unconventional (for her) STRAIGHT WHITE MEN, and when the play returned to New York for its Broadway engagement, two additional characters were added to the piece, scripted to be played by two members of marginalized groups appearing as themselves. "I'm from the Oneida and the Ojibwe nations," actor Ty Defoe explained to the audience. "My gender identity is Niizhi Manitouwug, which means 'transcending gender' in the Ojibwe language." "Me, I'm a Jew from the Jersey shore," quipped performance artist Kate Bornstein. "And I'm what's called 'non-binary,' which means 'not man/not woman' in the English language." It was a simple gesture, but perhaps having these performers speaking casually as themselves may have helped some audience members who might have been uncomfortable with the idea of gender fluidity come to realize the normalcy of it all.

Three days later after Lee's play opened, Jeff Whitty and James Magruder's combo of Sir Philip Sidney and The Go-Go's, HEAD OVER HEELS, commenced, featuring trans woman Peppermint playing Pythio, the Oracle of Delphi. "How is gender germane to the discussion?" retorts Pythio when asked if the oracle be man or woman, then offering a lesson in the non-binary plural pronouns Pythio uses for self-identity.

In keeping with the theme of playwright Lee Hall's adaptation of Paddy Chayefsky's Oscar-winning screenplay for the 1976 film classic "Network," director Ivo van Hove apparently wanted to send the audience out of the theatre mad as hell and unwilling to take it anymore. So after the cast has received its well-deserved cheers at curtain calls, there comes a moment that doesn't appear in Hall's script. No spoilers here, but let's just say audiences have been witnessed loudly booing and yelling out profanity-laced objections at what they've been seeing in the production's final moments.

Skewering the hypocrisy of white liberals who preach diversity but practice privilege, Joshua Harmon's ADMISSIONS frequently delved into Norman Lear territory, especially in a lengthy screed performed with operatic passion by Ben Edelman as Charlie, a 17-year-old white student who blames his non-acceptance to Yale on a glass ceiling placed over him by the favoritism offered to female, bi-racial and South American classmates. Building to a pitch-perfect manically deranged performance, coupled with the innocent ignorance expressed in the over-the-top writing, the monologue hilariously pointed out how Charlie sees only white victimization because he lacks consideration of historical context.

In the past several years Americans have gotten more and more familiar with the term "microaggressions"; those seemingly innocent words and/or actions by the privileged that create a discomforting atmosphere for the marginalized. The issue received a heavy workout in Eleanor Burgess' THE NICETIES, where a private argument between a white college professor and an African-American student gets posted on social media, to be judged in the court of public opinion. When the student claims, "You're more afraid of looking like a racist than you are of being a racist," it brings to mind the apologies of public figures who find their words being accepted differently from the way they were intended.

No, director/designer John Doyle did not have Raul Esparza wearing a blonde wig when he delivered his climatic oratory at the close of CSC's revival of Bertolt Brecht's 1941 allegorical satire of Hitler's ascension into power, THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF ARTURO UI. But when sound designer Matt Stine had chants of "Sieg heil" evolve into cries of "Lock her up!," the message of the production was loud and clear.

Though Emma Mann's GLORIA: A LIFE primarily tells the history of Gloria Steinem, one of the most vitally significant Americans of the 20th Century, it is very much grounded in the present day, with Christine Lahti, in the title role, speaking directly to the audience as the activist frequently points out where we are as compared with where we were. "476 women ran in primaries for Congress this year!," she pointed out at the late October preview this reviewer attended. "And given what we've been through in the last few weeks, I bet that number keeps growing." The talking circle that constitutes the final twenty minutes of the play is not a typical talkback, but a chance for viewers to contribute to the discussions raised by Mann's text. At that same performance, a senior member of the audience spoke with incredulous disbelief at how low the country has sunk in such a short period of time. Another lashed out at the 52% of white women who voted for Donald Trump. This is theatre of pure immediacy.

But that's just ten. There are plenty more. What were some of your favorite examples New York theatre tackling political and social issues in 2018?