Review Roundup: SMART PEOPLE Opens at Second Stage

Second Stage Theatre presents Lydia R. Diamond's play, Smart People, opening tonight, February 11, 2016, at Second Stage's Tony Kiser Theatre (305 West 43rd Street).

The New York premiere production of Smart People, the new play by LYDIA R. DIAMOND (Stick Fly), directed by Tony Award winner KENNY LEON (A Raisin in the Sun, The Wiz Live!) stars MAHERSHALA ALI(House of Cards), JOSHUA JACKSON (The Affair), ANNE SON (My Generation), and TESSA THOMPSON (Creed).

The quest for love, achievement and identity is universal, but what role does race play in the story of our lives? On the eve of Obama's first election, four Harvard intellectuals find themselves entangled in a complex web of social and sexual politics in this provocative and funny new play.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Charles Isherwood, The New York Times: Prickly, provocative notions about race, class, prejudice, identity and sexuality ricochet like balls scattering across a pool table in this brainy but overstuffed drama...For all their fancy talk (and talk, and talk) about psychology, neurology and the ways in which racism pervades American culture -- naturally a churning topic at the moment -- the forces that bring these four characters together too often seem dictated more by the playwright's desire to dive deeply into a swirling whirlpool of ideas rather than by natural circumstances...Although Ms. Diamond is clearly herself a powerfully smart writer, you come away from "Smart People" feeling like you've attended a marathon series of seminars, not a persuasively drawn drama.

Marilyn Stasio, Variety: Four attractive urban professionals cross paths, flirt, make love, wrestle with racial issues and talk their way in and out of romantic relationships without quite committing themselves. Sound familiar? Not the imaginative way playwright Lydia R. Diamond tells it in "Smart People," a sexy, serious and very, very funny modern-day comedy of manners. Kenny Leon adroitly directs a super cast who play characters smart enough to carry on an intellectual argument on race in America - and human enough to look foolish when they lose the argument.

Adam Feldman, Time Out NY: So why doesn't the play shake us more than it does? Kenny Leon's blah direction is partly to blame: Spacially vague, with homely sliding set pieces and large back-wall projections, Smart People looks as clunky as the acting sometimes makes it sound. Ali and Son do solid work, but Thompson is a blank, and Jackson delivers his lines in the cadences of a TV doctor on a 1960s serial. And the production's flaws bring out some weaknesses in the writing...And although Diamond raises resonant questions, much of her spitballing hits right on the nose. Audiences may be smarter than the play seems to believe.

Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News: As the comedy-drama "Smart People" covers the combustible subject of racism, it delivers a couple of other undisputable truths. First, a play that's topical isn't necessarily illumininating. Second, an actor who has given solid performances on screen isn't a sure thing on stage...The four characters collide in various ways, mostly in twos. Wherever they are - in bed, a basketball court, an audition room, restaurant, a clinic - racial and sexual tension and stereotypes hang in the air and spike the conversation. It's terrain worth exploring. But for every scene that comes alive with humor, there are two that turn didactic...Worse, Jackson embodies Brian poorly, offering little connection to words he's saying.

Jesse Green, Vulture: On the evidence of this unsatisfying production, directed by Kenny Leon, Diamond is more interested in addressing the complications of race as a kind of laboratory puzzle than in embodying characters that credibly exist beyond that issue. The result feels less like a play than a PowerPoint presentation...The problem with constructing characters in this way isn't that their traits don't seem real, it's that they don't seem organic. Diamond appears to have started with a list of true things and divvied them out to the four corners of her checkerboard...All of these permutations and involutions of the theme make Smart People the kind of play that's fascinating to read and think about. It is not, however, very fascinating to watch. Nothing much is going on visually; Leon's staging is cursory. The cast, mostly movie and television actors, looks terrific but leans too much to the extremes of their characters rather than to some unifying center.

Matt Windman, AM New York: Besides the characters venting ongoing frustrations about their careers and getting into meandering discussions on the presence of racism, no overall storyline develops and very little occurs for two hours and 15 minutes. It's hard to imagine the play appealing to an audience other than the academic types that it depicts. Leon draws shaded, believable performances from the quartet, but the play might have been more entertaining had he placed more emphasis on the humor in the script. It also may work better if cut down to 90 minutes.

Alexis Soloski, The Guardian: Lydia R Diamond's Smart People...ought to force an audience to examine its own intellectual bona fides and beliefs. Or it would if its ideas were better rooted in character, or if its actors seemed properly conversant in the disciplines assigned to them. Instead, this is a swirl of theories, propositions and provocations in search of a play...Diamond...works to establish relationships in ways that sometimes feel natural and more often feel strained. She wants the conflicts among them to emerge from character. But too often they feel like writerly contrivances. And some of the more interesting arguments -- for example, is prejudice learned or endemic -- are never fully explored. That the actors, especially the charismatic Jackson, feel distanced from the more academic speeches does not help...The director, Kenny Leon, relies heavily on projections, pools of light and odd set changes, with surprisingly little feeling for how these characters might actually interrelate or conduct themselves.

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Photo Credit: Matthew Murphy