Last year we saw the play Clybourne Park at DC's Woolly Mammoth Theater and really enjoyed it.
[Don't judge the venue based on it's excessively silly name... it's a great place to see a performance - a relatively small community theater (not a la Party Down variety... fortunately? unfortunately?) that makes for a pretty intimate experience while managing to attract real thespian talent (which I'm obviously a seasoned critic of as a result of my days as a Shakespearian actor) and hosts timely, insightful pieces. Further, WMT makes a real effort to offer affordable prices particularly for students and "young professional."]
Recently, Clybourne Park won a Pulitzer and it has now returned to the area for another run with the same cast and director - I recommend seeing it while you can.
Set in Chicago and alternating between the present and the late fifties, the play speaks skillfully to the ever charged topic of race in America and examines the neighbhorhood tensions arising from demographic shifts. Clybourne riffs off of Raisin in the Sun and - via several extended domestic scenes which essentially serve as platforms of debate between various characters - concludes (while eloquently raising a lot of unanswered questions) recalling the old adage - the more things change, the more they remain the same. Here is somewhat of a synopsis from a Brit critic's take.
We found the play both very funny (it has some great comedy-of-errors type slap stick scenes), thought-provoking, and some portions moved me to tears (although, I've also been known to tear up during Kid Rock music videos). All in all - it kept us discussing throughout the remainder of the evening (assisted by some nearby Matchbox pizzas and Chimays).
More personally, I think the questions the play raises about a family's link to property (and essentially, to a "place in time") and how those sentiments/affiliations both expand (sometimes based on false collective memories) and diminish as the property passes down to the next generation, often engendering conflict and/or the revival of old hurts will ring movingly familiar to anyone who's ever addressed decisions as to inheritance and the issue of a family home that both everyone wants and yet no one wants.
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Interesting suggestion, which I will likely follow up. What was really interesting though was the dual post - both Gen AND Nadia...AND YET 'twas difficult to discern the one voice from the other...this of course being your hook. You write the blog for yourselves but your loyal masses read for THEMselves and so we search for your distinct voices in this - your - eternal and elusive pairing. Together but distinct, this is how you will reach your audience. Together and indistinct, well, that's just for you two alone, no? (Remember, the more things change, the more they stay the same.) All that though and clearly I've devoted some time to this, so what do I know?
ReplyDeleteYou forget to add the line, "The play was originally recommended to us by our dear friend Jeanine, who I must admit inspired me to indulge my secret ambition to be a Shakespearean actor, what with her distinguished theatrical pedigree, that included such leads as Toto in The Wiz and a Two of Hearts in a deck of cards in the British smash comedy 'Card Play.' (Oh, you've never heard of it? What uncultured swine you be!)
ReplyDeleteSomething like that, anyway.
In unrelated news, that play is awesome.
hahahah oh my god, I forgot about Card Play. You're brilliant.
ReplyDelete