BWW Interviews: Tazewell Thompson Starts Difficult Conversation on RACE at TheaterWorks

I'm in downtown Hartford to meet with uber-busy theatre director Tazewell Thompson.  It is a reunion of a small sort as I had the opportunity to work on a production of Constant Star, a play with music written and directed by Thompson.  Tazewell has asked to meet at his new haunt, The Market at 21, a sleek grocery/café located a few blocks away from TheaterWorks where he is currently in rehearsal. Aside from catching up, we've come to talk about a subject that few people like to discuss these days - race.  More specifically, he is in town to direct one of the first regional productions of David Mamet's provocative Broadway hit Race. In the play, a wealthy white man hires a law firm - consisting of two black lawyers and one white - to defend him when he is accused a sex crime against a black woman.

We are sitting in the heart of a racially complex city; populations normally referred to as "minorities" -- African American, Latino and West Indian - are in fact the majority here.  Hartford's history of racial segregation and mistrust reaches all quarters of the city and its wealthy, predominantly-Anglo suburbs.  With international headlines about powerful white men like International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn (accused of sexually assaulting a hotel chambermaid from West Africa) and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (admitted to fathering a child with a Latina woman in his family's employ) embroiled in inappropriate sexual situations, now seems like an excellent time for a difficult conversation about gender, sex, class and Race.

HOW DID YOU COME TO DIRECT RACE AT THEATERWORKS?

Initially I didn't really know [TheaterWorks].  I was walking around Hartford when I came to Hartford Stage [in 2001] and I came across their theater.  Because of the current recession, an anticipated New York City Opera workshop and production I had scheduled fell through, and I had an opening in my schedule.  My agent called and said one of his other clients couldn't do Broke-ology for TheaterWorks this season.  I loved the play, so I came to TheaterWorks.  It's been great - everyone wears so many hats and the staff is amazing.  I was asked to do God of Carnage and was contracted to direct A Steady Rain, when Steve (Campo, the founder/Artistic Director of the company) asked me to direct a fourth play, Race.  I don't really know Mamet's work well.  I had only seen two American Buffalo and Glengarry Glen Ross...I knew it was a blistering and incendiary play. 

WHAT DREW YOU TO THE PLAY?

Race is a hot-button issue.  It stops discussions and starts arguments.  The play is going to offend a lot of people.  It's written in a very scathing style.  It examines the topic of race from the point of view from the two white characters and the two black characters, one male and one female.  It starts with a monologue by the black character and the first line is "You want me to tell you about black people?"  It really requires that as soon as the lights come up, that you've got strap yourself in and get ready for the ride.  With the situation with Strauss-Kahn, there is a parallel that is happening right now in the news.  The play reads like a thriller and I really like the play.  I've not done a Mamet before and I hope I get to do others.

DOES MAMET'S STATURE ALLOW HIM TO BE MORE SHOCKING?

It's a very well-written play.   His stature allows him to be in-your-face and explosive.  He can tackle this subject and do it in his own style.  He uses the n-word, the b-word for the woman and the c-word.   I think he does a great job in examining the subjects of gender and race and sex and race in a very frank and honest way.  That is what appeals to me the most.  It is very honest, very frank, very bold.

MAMET [WHO IS WHITE] DIRECTED THE BROADWAY PRODUCTION.  HOW DID YOU APPROACH THIS WORK AS AN AFRICAN-AMERCIAN?  YOU MIGHT BE THE FIRST BLACK DIRECTOR TO TACKLE THE PLAY.

As an African-American male directing this play, I think through my eyes and what I have experienced and how race affects me just about every day.  The obstacles, hurdles and prejudices.  Perhaps I have a keener insight as to what to do with this play.  I'm hoping what I've done is attacked it at full force and given it the energy, focus and demands of this play.  The characters cannot be polite with one another.  They speak frankly about how they feel about each other...As an African-American male, I can bring a substantial point of view.

WHAT ARE YOU HOPING FOR FROM THE AUDIENCE?

I am hoping that audiences will be uncomfortable and rapt.  I think if they are just sitting back and it mildly washes over them, I have failed.  I think it is written so that audiences, black and white, will be on a difficult ride. There is humor, so there is an entertainment aspect to it.  I'm certain they will enjoy the performances.  I think, of course, the play should spark some very in-depth and insightful conversations.  Any theatre that does this play has to sign an agreement that there will be no talk-backs in the theatre.  Hopefully the audiences will have these discussions as they go out onto the street and in the car on the way home.  I hope it will start conversations.  I hope it will be a difficult, enjoyable, thrilling theatrical ride for them.  It is a really good play.  It needs to be Mamet who tackles a subject like this.

THERE ARE A LOT OF PLAYS THAT DEAL WITH RACISM.  IN HARTFORD, RIGHT NOW, HARTFORD STAGE IS DOING August Wilson'S GEM OF THE OCEAN AND THE BUSHNELL IS DOING WEST SIDE STORY.  HOW DO YOU THINK THIS PLAY IS DIFFERENT IN ADDRESSING THE SUBJECT?

This is set now.  It is very contemporary, up-to-the-minute, popped out of the headlines, like Law & Order likes to say.  I think it is more scathing.  It is not passive-aggressive about race.  It is in your face.  Unfortunately, the topic seems like it is always going to be with us, regardless of who is sitting in the White House.  I think this play does more than a good job in keeping the conversation going, from a very incendiary point of view.

DO YOU THINK RACE IS THE MOST DIFFICULT SUBJECT TO TALK ABOUT TODAY?

I do.  I absolutely do.  It is one of the major issues of our time. 

DO YOU FEEL THERE IS RACISM IN THEATRE AS AN INDUSTRY?

The Theatre World, and by that I mean the world of theatre, opera and dance - anything that involves a live experience - is a reflection of what is going on in our country.  I think we have progressed and made in-roads, but I don't think there are enough stories on stage that really represent the multi-faceted spectrum, the variety, the ethnic mix of this country.  When people think "I've gotta do something for our audience that is culturally diverse," it is always a black play.  There are stories about Native Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans.  I think there is a lot more that needs to happen.  While we have an African American in the White House, as he's found out, it somehow seems to me...how shall I put this?  I think the subject of race is much more writ large.  It's really blown up rather than subsided in any way at all.  It has become very confused and volatile and very uncomfortable.  We seem to have regressed instead of taking a step forward.  The entire world celebrated at the victory of his presidency.  It was a great feeling, but perhaps there was too much hope pinned to one man.

HOW DO YOU ADDRESS AUDIENCE DIVERSITY? HOW DO YOU BREAK THE RACIAL BARRIER?

There has to be more than one play out of a season that has to be for a culturally diverse audience.  We need to see more persons of color in roles not specifically written for black or white characters.  We need a more representative board that represents a diverse community.  We need to have leaders that are sensitive to the needs of the community.  You go to work, get on the bus - you are surrounded by a cultural diversity.  You go to the theatre and suddenly you are in a marginalized, separate world. 

DO YOU ENJOY HOPPING BETWEEN DIRECTING PLAYS, OPERAS AND YOUR WORK AS A PLAYWRIGHT?

I feel extraordinarily lucky as an artist that I have the opportunity to do new plays and classical plays.  And then I get to do an operatic work by Benjamin Britten, Gershwin, Verdi, Mozart, and then squeeze out time to write a play.  I have a new play that will be produced by Arena Stage in Washington that I will also get to direct in the 2011-2012 season. 

SO WHAT'S THE PLAY ABOUT?

It's called Mary T. & Lizzy K.  It stands for Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley.  Elizabeth Keckley was born a slave.  She bought her freedom and taught herself to sew and she ended up becoming the personal seamstress of Mary Todd Lincoln in the White House.  She also became her closest friend and confidante.  I think the play...I hope the play examines, whether the two of them could really be friends.  At issue is Mary Todd, a woman I've really come to love, didn't always pay her bills and she was a shopaholic.  She didn't pay Elizabeth Keckley after a while, and Keckley wrote a book about her relationship with Lincoln.  So the question at hand:  Could they really be friends?  There are four characters - Abraham Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln, Elizabeth Keckley and Keckley's assistant Ivy. 

After our interview, Thompson invites me over to the theatre to see the completed set.  In TheaterWorks' underground venue, the stage has been turned into a contemporary board or meeting room in an upscale law office -- not at all the sort of setting where one would expect a vicious, open and brutal discussion about race.  Perhaps it is a surprising arena for the battle that is about to begin, but Mamet and Thompson wouldn't have it any other way.

Race by David Mamet, directed by Tazewell Thompson, runs at TheaterWorks at City Arts on Pearl in downtown Harford from June 3^rd to July 10^th.  For information visit www.theaterworkshartford.org or call (860) 527-7838. 

 

RACE poster image by Lanny Nagler Photography.

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