Sometimes referred to as a play about “race and real estate,” Clybourne Park(and its issues) goes much deeper. However, “race and real estate” may be the simplest way to describe this complex and fascinating look at the prejudices – and general views – of our society. It is a play about lonely people, barely connected to each other but too desperate to break free from each other. Under the superb direction of artistic director Mark Clements, a top-notch cast at Milwaukee Rep gives this play all the various nuances it deserves.
Both acts are set in the same house. Act I opens in 1959, as a white couple unknowingly sell their home to a black family. The all-white neighborhood is soon in an uproar. Act II is set in the same house, although the year is 2009. Things have completely reversed themselves – a white family wants to move into what is now a predominantly black neighborhood.
Playwright Bruce Norris has crafted an eye-opening look at how we are shaped by society’s views. Although the characters attempt to get along with one another (at least initially), this soon becomes an exercise in futility. The characters can barely stand their own spouses and longtime neighbors, much less some unknown newcomers. There is plenty of bite in the dialogue. Still, Norris is such a skilled wordsmith that he takes odd bits of phrases and turns them hilariously on their ear. As a result, characters who attempt to “say the right thing” only find themselves getting into deeper trouble. And the audience can’t help but laugh.
Norris further makes his point that “the more things change, the more they stay the same” by incorporating some artful doubling in the cast. The same actors appear in both acts, although the playwright niftily shuffles the deck in terms of who plays what character. Thus, a husband in Act I becomes a handyman in Act II; a Negro maid in Act I is a savvy, middle-class black woman in Act II, and so forth.
After viewing the Milwaukee Rep’s production of Clybourne Park, it is easy to understand how the play managed to win a prized theatrical trifecta: a Pulitzer Prize, London’s Olivier Award for Best Play and a Tony Award for Best Play. The New York production opened Off-Broadway in 2010 at Playwrights Horizon. It then hopped to Broadway for a limited run that ended in September 2012. And now it is making the rounds of regional theaters such as the Milwaukee Repertory Theater and its co-producer, Arizona Theatre Company.
This ensemble is seamless as it follows the play’s unique rhythm. Noteworthy performances abound. In Act I, Lee E. Ernst and Jenny McKnight are electrifying as they portray a middle-class white couple in the midst of moving. Their idle chatter at first seems to reveal little about them, except for their limited knowledge of the world. Later, the audience discovers that a personal tragedy has forever changed them. The “idle chatter” is a means of distracting them from the honest discussions they should have – ones that might turn grief to healing.
Also in the house is the couple’s black maid, who helps with the packing. Through long years of practice, the maid hides her true feelings from her white employers. She only speaks up when her husband, who arrives to pick her up after work, offers to move a heavy trunk downstairs to the main floor. As the audience soon learns, such kindnesses are not rewarded.
In Act II, the characters are more affluent, educated and well-traveled. But they are still somewhat befuddled about their relationship to the world. A young, two-career couple wants to demolish the house and rebuild something nicer, newer. A black couple from the neighborhood seek to save these architectural (though run-down) landmarks. The white couple, growing more irritated by the minute, want to know why these objections weren’t brought up sooner. The demolition work is scheduled to begin in a few days.
In a fashion strikingly similar to Act I, tempers flare and civility soon flies out the window.
The cast is uniformly terrific. Gerard Neugent is everything a playwright could want in the twin roles of an over-reactive, upstanding Rotarian (Act I) and a coarse, condescending homeowner (Act II). Likewise, Marti Gobel shines as the maid who never oversteps her place (Act I), and later as a street-savvy representative of the local homeowners association. Each cast member deserves individual recognition, if space would allow.
The set, which definitely does not age gracefully over the years, is the creation of Todd Edward Ivins. In many ways, this production’s set looks similar to photos of the Broadway set. Yet it retains its own identity of a solidly constructed Midwest home that has sheltered generations of people.
The music that accompanies each act is also effective in underscoring the respective eras. However, it is not production values that audiences will remember long after the curtain comes down. It is the words – both well-meaning and hurtful – that reveal more about ourselves than we really want to know.
