I’m not quite sure what to make
of Straight White Men. Written
and directed by Young Jean Lee it’s a
play in the sense that it’s scripted and acted, but it doesn’t have a great
deal discernible in the way of form or structure. It takes place in what seems
an upper-middle-class house in the Midwest where three grown sons (Gary
Wilmes, Pete Simpson and James Stanley) spend Christmas Day and the day after with their
widowed father (Austin Pendleton).
Mostly they engage in hijinks with each other, some benign, some a little more
aggressive. (Though the title and characters might seem to indicate an “exposé”
of a sort, nothing could be further from the truth. These fellows are all
socially self-aware and the first to call themselves out on their own societal
foibles, including manifestations of casual just-among-whites racism that they know
to be wrong. This jocular, jockish interplay goes on for the better
part of the action; and then right at the end, there’s the suggestion of an
underlying story. And just as that the real story (arguably) starts, the play
ends.
The
play has the tone of something that was improvised around a structure and then
scripted. And to me it played out like a cross between a New Millennium spin on
the first, pre-1900 experiments with naturalism, and an updated John Cassavetes
film, likewise improvised around a situation, like Husbands.
The
acting is first tier, there’s appropriately macho commitment; and insofar as can be
determined with this sort of thing, the direction is fine too. But I’m hard-pressed
to tell you what the play is actually doing for a living. However…if aimless
yet contained, pointless but polished, mostly-comic romping, leading toward a
sudden, more sober conclusion, delivered by guys who know how to get their
laughs, is enough to entertain…you may find yourself entertained enough.
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