Theater for the New City Presents Staged Reading of CLASS, Play About White Rage
By: BWW News Desk Jan. 20, 2017
Count Stovall is directing the staged reading starring Aixa Kendrick and Michael O'Day at Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave. (9th-10th Sts.) in Manhattan.
Performances are Friday-Saturday Jan. 20-21 at 8 p.m. and Saturday-Sunday Jan. 21- 22 at 3 p.m. Tickets for the staged readings are $10 by clicking Tix., at (212)254-1109 and at www.theaterforthenewcity.net.
In addition to being a playwright and author of books such as "The Voting Rights War" and "Race, Law and American Society," Browne-Marshall is an associate professor of constitutional law at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY), a civil-rights attorney, a legal correspondent and founder/director of The Law and Policy Group.
She speaks nationally and internationally about the quest for justice in addition to teaching and writing for theater.
"I tell people the limbs are on the same tree and I name my tree justice," Browne-Marshall said of her work from theater to classroom to publications. "And I try different ways to get my point of view across. Sometimes, it may be a book. Sometimes, it may be a play."
CLASS, a two character full-length play about race relations, looks at a conflict in a classroom between a teacher and a student.
It is being presented soon after Martin Luther King Day and close to the inauguration of a new president whose ascent many believe has further polarized the nation.
"We should be thinking about race relations, gun violence, police shootings and white rage," Browne-Marshall said "White rage is what propelled this person into office. We need to examine what it actually means."
In CLASS, an angry poor white student confronts his black female college professor about the bad grade he received in her race-relations class. The confrontation turns deadly after he reveals that he believes black people stole his American dream.
"My character is raging over a battle over the American dream and the anger that certain people believe their American dream has been stolen. Other people may have thought they weren't promised an American dream," Browne-Marshall said. "They are missing out on part of their dream and they're angry about it. They think other people are stealing it."
Browne-Marshall believes that a dynamic has developed in which some people blame any disappointment with their American dream on others.
"When they see immigrants, they think immigrants are stealing their dream," she said. "Some people believe they're always supposed to be first in line. When they examine what they have and compare it to other people, maybe people of color, women, immigrants, if they feel they've come up short, they're angry and feel cheated."
Browne-Marshall believes that anger is not just a reaction to events, but a problem itself, pitting people against each other and blaming rather than trying to build a better life for them and others.
"It doesn't make sense in a country that has so much to offer," she said of anger in America. "Why are people doing this to each other here? If there was a scarcity of food and people were killing each other over food or water, I could see it. What are they killing for? Why are people so angry in this country? Why do they feel cheated?"
Browne-Marshall has worked as a civil rights attorney, practicing in North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, seeing how race plays out in the courtroom. She has written about race relations, most recently completing an article about Barack Obama for a French magazine.
"I've always been a civil rights or public interest attorney," she said. "The advocacy for justice has been a part of the things I do."
She teaches various topics including race in the law at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, seeking to address how race plays out in the justice system in addition to addressing these issues in plays.
"Teaching race in the law, I talk to students and they talk to me about their experiences," she added. "But they also learn historically what has happened in this country."
While the play deals with race relations, it also looks at how guns can turn temporary anger into permanent tragedy as disagreements are transformed into deadly conflict.
"America has more guns than people," Browne-Marshall said. "The murder rate in this country is crazy. Guns take lives. Whether or not that life is intended to be taken, as in a cop who feels his life is threatened or a gang where someone intentionally tries to take someone's life, or a life is taken by accident, at the end of the day, that life is gone."
Students in classrooms listen to obtain information and get good grades; playwrights have to capture audiences' attention with what takes place on stage.
"You don't have a captive audience when it comes to a play," she said. "You've got lots of competition as to how people will spend their time, money and energy."
She said talking about these issues is crucial, even if people bring a different point of view. But they need to seek to be informed.
"We don't always have to agree," she said of discussions in class. "That's the whole point, not that you have to agree, but you come to it from a position of some type of education. It's not just your personal opinion."
Although violence frequently makes headlines, Browne-Marshall said she begins not with news, but with characters that come to life.
"My characters come to me," she said. "When it comes to my non-fiction books, it might be a topic that interests me. Certain topics fight to the forefront. Certain characters demand to be written about. If I don't write about them, I can't sleep. So I have to write about the characters."
She said she was writing about voting rights when the characters in CLASS "forced their way to the forefront and demanded to be on stage." She put aside her non-fiction work and wrote CLASS, first presented in an un-staged reading at Theater for the New City and then at the College of William and Mary in Virginia fall of 2015.
"I write about different perspectives on justice. What a child might think is just, an adult might think isn't," she said. "Justice has different perspectives on it. I like to give different perspectives."
Browne-Marshall's produced plays include "My Juilliard," a drama about an artist's battle with Alzheimer's disease and a family secret; "Killing Me Softly," a murder mystery with political intrigue, as well as one-person shows "Jeanine" and "Waverly Place."
CLASS is being presented as a staged reading Friday-Saturday, Jan. 20-21 at 8 p.m. as well as Saturday Jan. 21 and Sunday Jan. 22 both at 3 p.m. Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave. (between 9th and 10th Sts.), New York, NY. Tickets $10 at (212)254-1109 and www.theaterforthenewcity.net.
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