With Race, David Mamet is at the top of his game as a provocateur on the titled subject.
A rich and famous, married white businessman, Charles Strickland, accused of raping a black woman, wants a firm of one white (Jack Lawson), one black attorney (Henry Brown) with a newly hired black female lawyer (Susan), to defend him. First this leads to a debate over whether to take the case, then to if and how the firm can win.
Not only are racial attitudes and relations at the core of the drama, but also sexual mores and the tenor of the times. Can jury members be impartial in a climate that suspects, perhaps resents the social, economic, or racially privileged? That promotes white guilt, political correctness and fear of being thought racist? That makes blacks bear grudges against whites, suspect and dislike them, want revenge by dominating? And then there's compounding of racism with sexism in a case where the alleged rape victim is a female African-American prostitute!
Mamet might have used his words in an essay upon his approaching age 50 as a prospectus for Race: "While our nature and disposition remain loathsome, cruel and, at its (sic) best, pathetic, material circumstances... conspire to elaborate, degenerate and thus rob life of those last remaining purities undebauched by progress." With Mamet's typical hard-hitting language, abrasive characterizations and fractious exchanges, Race raises ethical concerns while covertly attacking hypocrisy, "p.c." and excessive feminism.
Director Richard Hopkins deserves praise an FST production that matches Mamet's dynamism. Casting is also on the mark. Ronald Siebert maintains Charles' fear along with compulsions to acquit himself through explanations yet confess to gain relief. As sarcastic lawyer Henry, Kevyn Morow remains attractive even spouting hatred of whites, his happiness at their guilt feelings, and his worries about what negatives the case could mean to the firm and thus him.
Jack, whose cynicism about human beings reflects Mamet's, is interested only in how to win over a jury, considering the "climate" and Charles' state of mind. Forced to take the case by some missteps on Susan's part, Jack, with his jaded views of life and tempestuous search for an "out" for Charles, has Jeffrey Plunkett spellbinding through many twists and turns of plot. And perhaps most efficiently twisted in making them happen, Susan (played as reticent, then rebellious by Toccara Cash) unites both racial and sexual factors in the conflict at the heart of the play.
April Soroko's handsome legal library -- office set and her tailored costumes could not be improved upon. Nor could Robert Perry's lighting. Race, like Doubt, is a play that will be thought and talked about after its performance at FST is over. It may be melodrama yet the best kind -- not mellow but certainly dramatic.
