Reviewed by Judy Richter
Playwright Bruce Norris uses Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" as a kind of launching pad
for his "Clybourne Park," being given its West Coast premiere by American
Conservatory Theater.
The two-act play opens in 1959 as a white couple, Bev (René Augesen) and Russ (Anthony Fusco) are preparing to move from
their home in Clybourne Park, a middle-class, white neighborhood in Chicago.
They don't seem to know that a black family is buying their house, but they
soon find out from a neighbor, Karl (Richard Thieriot), who tries to dissuade them.
Russ angrily refuses to change their plans.
Act
2 is set in the same house 50 years later, 2009 when the neighborhood has
become black. A white couple, Lindsey (Emily Kitchens) and Steve (Thieriot), are
buying the house, which has become rundown (set by Ralph Funicello with lighting by Alexander V.
Nichols), and
want to remodel and enlarge it. A black couple, Lena (Omozé Idehenre) and Kevin (Gregory Wallace) object on the ostensible
grounds that the proposed changes are out of character with the neighborhood.
The
racism in Act 1 is quite obvious. There's also the question of why Bev and Russ
would sell their house in the first place, but gradually the audience learns of
the tragedy underlying the decision. Racism is initially varnished over in Act
2, but it soon emerges in tasteless jokes and sometimes virulent language.
Norris makes things more interesting by revealing some relationships between
characters in the two acts.
Jonathan
Moscone,
artistic director of California Shakespeare Theater, makes his ACT directoral debut
in fine fashion, pacing the ensemble cast well and allowing each member to
delve into his or her character. In addition to those already mentioned, the
cast features Manoel Felciano as a minister in Act 1 and the black couple's attorney in
Act 2. Everyone excels, but special note must be made of Kitchens, who has
mastered the speaking patterns of a deaf woman in Act 1.
Besides
Funicello and Nichols, the design team includes Jeff Mockus for sound and Katherine Roth for costumes. Jonathan Rider is fight director.
Often
hilarious and sometimes scathing, "Clybourne Park" reveals that for
all the progress that has been made in the past half-century, racism still
permeates some aspects of our society.
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