From Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet, comes his most explosive four-letter word yet. Race.
Race is the riveting new play by America’s foremost playwright, Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-Plow, American Buffalo, November).
Directed by the playwright, it stars Emmy Award winner James Spader (“Boston Legal,” Sex, Lies and Videotape), Tony nominee and television star David Alan Grier (“A Soldier’s Story,” “In Living Color”, “Chocolate News”), Kerry Washington (Ray, Lakeview Terrace) and Richard Thomas (“The Waltons,” Democracy, Twelve Angry Men).
Race may be the central theme, but Mamet, who also directed, is more interested in how differences – in color, gender, ethnicity and class – foster a lack of communication and breed resentment. 'It's a complicated world, full of misunderstandings,' Lawson observes. 'That's why we have lawyers.' The line seems at once sarcastic and pedantic. Though Race can be bitingly funny, some of Lawson and Brown's comments threaten to veer into speechifying. Lawson, especially, seems at times to be venting on behalf of the playwright, whose disdain for the strictures of political correctness is well known.
Everyone in 'Race' breathes the same polluted morality that surround just about every other Mamet character. Jack Lawson and his partner Henry Brown are successful defense lawyers. And true to the stereotype they are as cynical and calculating as they come. So cynical in fact, these guys are beyond racism. They're prejudiced against everyone, or so it seems. They're trying to determine whether to take the case of a wealthy white man accused of raping a young black woman. Their newly hired associate also happens to be a young black woman which should be a tip off to anyone familiar with Mamet's writing. The play is as much about sexism as racism. In fact, despite the title, Mamet seems far more eager to steer this play into the murky waters of misogyny. As badly behaved as the men can be, beware the Mamet women.
2009 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play | David Alan Grier |
Videos