BWW Reviews: CLYBOURNE PARK - It's Not All Black and White

Race. It's a touchy subject (there's the understatement of the last millennia). So whenever a playwright attempts to take on race-more specifically, the volatile, handle-like-plutonium subject which is racism and prejudice-- it's a true test of writing ability to ensure success. Happily, author Bruce Norris is up to the task, in fact, adding the spice of socio-economic themes, a dash of class warfare, to the mix.

Norris' play, Clybourne Park, is the first in what Center Stage is billing as the first of a 2-part "Raisin Cycle," that is, two plays (the second, Beneatha's Place) that "pick up where Lorraine Hansberry left off in her landmark, A Raisin in the Sun," so sayeth the press release. Both plays feature the same acting ensemble, design team and director, Derrick Sanders. If the performance I saw of Clybourne is any indication, seeing both plays is a definite must.

Like Beneatha's Place, both plays are in two acts, set in 1959 in the first, 2009 in the second. While Beneatha's is set in Nigeria, Clybourne opens in the middle-class Chicago home of Bev and Russ (Beth Hylton and Jonathan Crombie). Russ and Beth share in a humorous exchange about Capital Cities, but despite the "Ozzie and Harriet" set-up, it soon becomes apparent that there is something dark and painful in their recent past, a loss that has driven Russ to put their home up for sale.

Crombie is excellent as a man barely maintaining the proper, Eisenhower-era façade of Rotary-Club-membership normalcy, a façade that cracks when pushed-first by the hernia-plagued family pastor Jim (Jacob H. Knoll) and then by neighbor Karl (James Ludwig) who has discovered that it is a black family that is purchasing Russ' home.

Here we see the allusion to Raisin in the Sun, as in that play, a minor character named Karl Lindner attempts to bribe the black Younger family from purchasing a home in a white neighborhood.

As Karl attempts to tap dance around the issue - his concerns about "white flight" and an expected drop in property values - the pressure on Russ rises until he explodes, and the reason he is leaving the neighborhood is exposed. Russ' pain, regarding the maltreatment and eventual suicide of his Korean War veteran son, provides insight into a different kind of prejudice, one that would consume the nation during the Vietnam conflict.

Caught in the middle is Russ and Bev's black housekeeper, Francine (Jessica Frances Dukes), who is thrust into the role of one-woman focus group, her opinion asked to speak for the entire African-American community. It's a role she clearly does NOT want to play, as her husband, Albert (Charlie Hudson, III) attempts to play peacemaker, but finds being friendly has its cost.

There's a couple particularly telling moments in the play where Beth, attempting what she construes as a good deed, is rebuffed, first by Francine, and then by Charlie. There's so much meaning in these exchanges, the sense of white entitlement, the assumption that Francine and Albert, being black, would need their help, that they should automatically be grateful; the refusal to respect them and their wishes as Beth would any white neighbor, etc. One will never look at a chafing dish in quite the same way!

In the second act, we see a reversal of roles. Now it is a white couple, Steve (Ludwig) and Lindsey (Jenna Sokolowski, who plays Karl's deaf and pregnant wife in the first act) moving into the same Clybourne Park home, hammering out the details of the purchase with black couple Kevin (Hudson and Lena (Dukes), each with their own lawyer (Hilton and Knoll) to assist.

Instead of "white flight," the issue is "gentrification," where "neighborhoods in transition" encounter monied, upwardly-mobile young families seeking to displace current residents who find themselves tempted by the promise of rising property values. The conflict here includes the desire to respect and preserve history...the question is, whose history should be preserved?

Lena points out that this Chicago neighborhood played a significant role relative to civil rights for African-Americans. Steve, however, notes that, going back further in history, the neighborhood featured a European mix; should not that history be honored as well?

Unfortunately, the play at this point begins to take on the characteristics of an old "In Living Color" TV episode as the white and black couples trade offensive ethnic and gender jokes in an attempt to prove that neither finds such matters of import.

Tying the two acts together is the story of Russ's dead war veteran son and a large, military footlocker that keeps getting underfoot, in more ways than one.

As is typical of a Center Stage production, the technical aspects of the play are first rate, from the props (where they found that old 1950s's Neopolitan ice cream container, I'll never know) to the costumes (particularly notable in the first act, very "Leave it to Beaver") to the lighting and sound, and overall direction of Derrick Sanders.

Clybourne Park continues its run at Center Stage, 700 North Calvert Street in downtown Baltimore, now through June 16^th, with Beneatha's Place, running concurrently May 8^th through June 16^th. Clybourne has a running time of approximately two hours, including one 15-minute intermission. For more information, call 410.332.0033 or visit www.centerstage.org.

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