A Florida police station in the middle of the night. Two parents searching for answers. AMERICAN SON is a gripping tale about who we are as a nation, and how we deal with family relationships, love, loss, and identity.
So you have to get past all that schematic writing to get to the deeper point, which is that racism poisons everything: marriages, justice, economic progress, decent black police officers, even hope for the American future. The two ex-spouses fight as proxies for their identities: Scott argues Kendra has encouraged the kid to be 'too black'; Kendra says the kid was mad at having been abandoned by his rich, white dad. The African-American cop is caught in the middle. The piece wrestles with crucial issues, and it's performed with enough intensity by Pasquale and Washington under Kenny Leon's theme-based direction that they effectively collide with your own prejudices, whoever you might be. You feel everything the characters feel, and, given the crisis we're all in, that has worth.
But though American Son has the superficial form of a classical tragedy and a scene of raw suffering that few tragedies can equal, it also has a creaky dramatic structure, shallow characterizations, naïve politics and indifferent writing. Directed by Kenny Leon, who has submerged his tendency to showboat in favor of a studied naturalism, it's a very powerful play without being an especially good one and that shouldn't matter - power being hard to come by - but sometimes it does.
2018 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2019 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Kerry Washington |
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