By Gwen Frost
“Clybourne Park” has come to the Western Washington theatre department.
“Clybourne Park,” a drama by Bruce Norris, won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award for Best Play, and will be showing Wednesday May 31 through Saturday June 3 at 7:30 p.m. and additionally on Saturday and Sunday June 3 and 4 at 2 p.m.
“Clybourne Park” is a look into the politics of race that plagued the 20th century, as well as those same politics within their own domestic context. In 1959, Russ and Bev are moving out to the suburbs after their son unfortunately dies. They unintentionally sell their house to the neighborhood’s first black family. The second part of the play is set in 2009, where a young white couple buys a lot in a predominantly black neighborhood. The differences in the two time periods make the similarities abundantly clear. In both time periods, the small communities are rattled by the shifts in racial dynamics, with real estate and neighborly concern playing the gay-beard of deep racial prejudices.
It allows a theatrical lens to view how racism and sexism have adapted to culture.
Actor Siera Woods-Lindholm described the play as “…putting itching powder down the audience’s pants because you’re like ‘no… don’t say that,’ but the play has this humor element where laughter is the release of that tension.”
The tense and comedic elements both magnify each other into more complex emotions. This play is exceedingly pertinent to both world history and where we are now with our current political administration. The play deals with innocence on topics of both race and gender.
ABOVE: Actors rehearse for “Clybourne Park.” Photo by Janna Bodnar // AS Review.
Cast member Lauren Brigolin, discussed the way the play demonstrated “How we can look around today and think ‘oh that’s not happening’ but it is… and it’s set in this really outrageous, funny way.” Brigolin went on to say, “It’s like what Bruce Norris said: ‘it’s a play for a white community.’ These messages about racism, gentrification and communities just aren’t talked about enough. As an actor, you find ways to make your play special, but this is the kind of play with a really important message… and I don’t want to mess it up.”
Brigolin described the characters as, “They’ve never had a conversation about social identities. Then you get to watch them figure it out onstage.”
When it is disclosed that playwright said this play was “written for white audiences,” specification is needed. “Bellingham is almost like a white liberal island, so it’s interesting to see these views questioned in unconventional ways. [The play] challenges you in ways you didn’t that know you could be challenged,” actor Josh Granum said
Granum also said he was particularly excited to see the discussion that the play stimulated after the final scene. However, he did have one concern about the play’s impact and what audiences might take away from the experience.
“My biggest fear is that people will leave this play and go ‘Ha, good thing we’re not like those people’ and then they’ll laugh their way home,” Granum said.
The theatre department is in charge of issuing trigger warnings (one was issued for the last show because there was a gunshot effect) but there has not been one issued for this play.
“Nobody gets out of this cycle of territorialism or prejudice.” -Ryan Moghadam
Ryan Moghadam, another member of the cast, described the impact of the play as potentially allowing us “to examine this human condition that creates the environment for racism.” The point of the play is not that “we’re still where we were 50 years ago,” he said, but it could be: “look, this is something that everybody is dealing with all the time. Nobody gets out of this cycle of territorialism or prejudice.”
Bruce Norris designed the play so that there could be seven actors playing all the characters, which could advantage a low-budget program. Western’s Theatre Department has far more than the seven people he casts in the first act, who very purposefully play different characters in the second act. “It gives an outside perspective on what you might be saying that you don’t know you’re saying,” Norris said.
Originally, one actor played two roles that mirrored each other; one role, Steve, had a mirror that was also extremely racist. But that mold? It just adapts. It’s just a different angle of the same view. The original intention of the play was to have the same actors playing either contradictory or synonymous characters to exemplify, in an artistic choice, the same theme that the play exudes: racism pervades throughout time. The archetype stays the same, but it shape-shifts. The racism just looks different. “Call it ‘poetic symmetry,’” Moghadam said.
“Clybourne Park” mirrors Bellingham’s own history of gentrification. Considering what the white community did to the Lummi nation–the moving of people out of their homes in very palpable parallels which dance between reality and theatre. The honesty of this political comedy has dark edges; says Moghadam, “Our director keeps saying ‘this comedy is deadly.’”
ABOVE: “Clybourne Park” rehearsal. Photo by Janna Bodnar // AS Review.
“Clybourne Park” was written in response to Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.” “Clybourne Park” is set up as a pair of scenes where one is the prequel to Hansberry’s piece, and the other is the sequel. The two scenes are set 50 years apart, but both occur in the same area on Chicago’s northwest side. Two days before opening night, “A Raisin In the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry will be playing on Tuesday, May 30, at 6 p.m. in Old Main Theater. The screening of “A Raisin in the Sun” will be followed by a Q&A led by Dean of Students Ted Pratt.
“Clybourne Park” is fast paced, with everyone is fighting for a word. The differences from 1959 to 2009 really illustrate what has stayed the same. The things you do not have in common with the the characters will show you what you actually do share with them. How will the play that occurs fifty years from 2017 show this time period on stage when it examines racism in America?
Moghadam said that he believes that we should all “Leave the theatre being challenged by the play to adapt or examine your view of the world.” This play will also lead us to reflect on our view of ourselves.