Review Roundup: David Mamet's RACE at the Hampstead

Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet's play Race, directed by Terry Johnson, opened at The Hampstead Theatre on Wednesday 29 May 2013 and runs through 29 June 2013.

The play follows a white man who is accused of raping a young black woman; he hires two attorneys - one white, one black to fight his case. As they grapple with the evidence, their investigation uncovers and explores the racist tension found in every society, and how this can influence the role of the accused and accuser.

Let's see what the critics had to say:

Michael Coveney of whatsonstage.com writes: Terry Johnson's almost unbearably taut production, set by designer Tim Shortall in a large, library-style office with a soar-away inset of the Manhattan skyline, never flinches in the face of Mamet's gruelling exposition. Nor do his actors, who are quirkily cast.

Charles Spencer of the Daily Telegraph writes: Few writers can grip an audience like David Mamet... The four-lettered dialogue is often raw, and the confrontations pack a real punch... the play does often feel mechanical. The characters are little more than points of view in a dramatic discussion and though the dialogue is edgily compelling, this is a play of ideas that never engages the heart... elegantly designed by Tim Shortall... Clarke Peters proves particularly compelling as the black lawyer... Jasper Britton captures the glee of a lawyer... Nina Toussaint-White is intriguingly ... Charles Daish struggles however with the underwritten character... The play crams myriad ideas and provocations into its 80-minute running time but leaves its audience seriously undernourished when it comes to emotional depth.

Henry Hitchings of the Evening Standard says: Mamet's dialogue has always had a distinctive terseness. Yet here the writing often rings hollow, sacrificing authenticity as it strains for a rhetorical style that is (intentionally) pedantic and (perhaps less intentionally) repetitive. Only one character is genuinely rounded, and the plot creaks, lurching in the end towards implausibility.

Michael Billington of the Guardian writes: David Mamet reminds me of some veteran pugilist with a pile of trophies yet still anxious for a fight: the old technique is still there, even if the punches no longer pack the same weight. For proof, you only need look at this 85-minute play, first seen in New York in 2009, which seeks to land a knockout blow on liberal pieties about race, but leaves them largely unscathed.

Libby Purves of the Times says: .. snarly 2009 play, premiering here to make us as depressed... conversion to the idea that people are all horrible... Terry Johnson directs a taut, bilious 80 minutes... There is a plot, with an unexpected villain and a decent twist. But frankly most of the play consists of bilious, circular and miserable arguments about why none of them will ever trust or understand the other lot.... Jasper Britton is Jack, a white, barnstormingly cynical, old-school defence attorney. Clarke Peters plays his powerfully intelligent black partner... It's a furious, occasionally witty Mamettian word-game. But it gets nowhere, does no favours to its black characters and few to the white ones, and ends in an annoying cop-out.

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