Review: CLYBOURNE PARK at EPAC

I love stories with an equal dose of humor and pathos.  Some of my favorite movies include One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Rain Man, and Do the Right Thing. Each film is hilarious, while simultaneously telling a story that is both dramatic and important. Tonally, it is a very difficult, yet very rewarding thing to do.  EPAC’s current production of Clybourne Park pulls this off, masterfully.

Sort of a parallel sequel to Lorraine Hansberry’s classic, A Raisin in the Sun, Clybourne Park explores topics such as racism, entitlement, gentrification, and language through two stories in one setting told fifty years apart. The 7 member cast each play different characters in each of the two acts.

The first (and stronger of the) acts take place in 1959,  Tim Spiese  and Lynne DeMers-Hunt play a bereaving couple preparing to move out of their suburban Chicago home. Spiese is fantastic in his ability to convey his character’s sadness and grief.  He is well matched by DeMers-Hunt who puts on her best Suzy Homemaker façade necessary to convince others that everything is going to be just fine.

 When a neighbor informs the couple that their house is being sold to an African-American family, fingers are pointed, words are exchanged, and people are blamed.  Korri Slamans plays the couple’s African American housekeeper.  She and her husband (Andrew Dixon) are privy to some very awkward and racist conversations.

The audience was doing a lot of seat squirming and nervous chuckling throughout the night as characters continued to dig themselves deeper and deeper into a hole through their words and actions.

Act two picks up 50 years later, with the tables turned. The house is now part of a Black neighborhood, and a well-off and well-meaning White couple (played by Steve Caldwell and Gabrielle Sheller) make plans to move in and contribute towards gentrifying the neighborhood. 

Sheller owns the second act.  While her character had little to do for the first half of the play, she makes up for it during the second half.  Her character is very vocal and considers herself very liberal.  (Just don’t ask her to name names when she announces that “like more than half my friends are black”.)

The second act is very much about the power of language, its ability to hurt and its ability to offend. There was a little bit of Archie Bunker and a touch of Michael Scott at play. Sean Caldwell was especially adept at reacting to the verbal insanity thrown around like hand grenades.  One of the  truths of the script is that jokes are funny until they are about you.  Then they are no laughing matter. We get lots to think about and even more to discuss and debate.

Director, Bob Checchia does an excellent job with pacing.  The overlapping dialogue is crisp and sounds authentic.  Action moves the plot forward, and the audience spends an equal amount of time laughing at and laughing with the characters on stage throughout the night.

Scenic designer, Jordan Janota is extremely effective in his ability to differentiate the house between the two acts.  I was impressed with the decision to dress the stagehands as movers to prep the set at intermission.  The accompanying radio music selections that suggests the progress of time was especially clever.

Clybourne Park has a lot going for it. Two dramatic stories, seven talented actors, and a lot of laughs. EPAC continues to do an amazing job of bringing stories of diversity to her Central Pennsylvania stage. The only thing better would be to see a similar level of diversity among her audience. 

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