| . | 12/20/2009
Race
By: Eugene Paul
By dint of a huge talent and hard work David Mamet has established himself as not only a playwright but screenwriter of note, director in film as well as the stage, champion of causes and a profound influence. People say of dialogue,”That sounds like Mamet”, of a play’s construction, “That is so Mamet.” He has become a brand, an icon, a force, his plays performed again and again. They are terse, pithy, theater wise, in cast, in construction. Naturally, there is a cost.
Race is the fourth David Mamet play to have appeared on Broadway this past year and if you’ve seen them all, you’ve found them very revealing. Oh, not for content. None resolve; they set you up for discussions, which are fine, and you’ve been entertained on your way to the discussion afterward. But don’t look for resolution, catharsis. Not in this world, Mamet’s world. What you get in Mamet’s world is betrayal in each of the plays: American Buffalo Speed the Plow, Oleanna, and now, Race. Part of the story, part of the character, part of the zeitgeist. There’s plenty of justification for repeating the act of betrayal in play after play; just look around at the world. Pick a topic: Healthcare, for instance. Apply Mamet and you are sure to get the lacerating exposition of the betrayals in the healthcare warring debate. The economy? Too easy. Mamet makes us see how the public has been betrayed again and again. Corporate greed? Lost jobs? Homelessness? There’s so much material afloat it could drown us. Mamet can make it come to boiling life on the stage.
In Race he does it again. You come to the theater expecting it. Susan (Kerry Washington) has ushered in a new potential client for her employers. Susan is trim, pretty, contained, young, edgy. She shines in this dark office. Jack Lawson (James Spader), her white boss, is untidy, thoroughly jaundiced, experienced. Her black boss, Henry Brown (David Alan Grier) is miles beyond jaundiced. He is downright, scary cynical. Especially about race. How he and his partner ever got together in business is a big, black hole in Mamet’s play. They attack their potential client, Charles Strickland (Richard Thomas) as if he were the enemy. And Brown makes it flat out clear that because Strickland is white he is automatically guilty no matter what the case is about. It is about a case of rape brought against him by a beautiful, young black girl. Strickland says he’s innocent because the girl was not only willing, he loves her. Both partners beat him over the head with the fact that they cannot win this case based on what evidence there is. They reject him as a client, even black Susan thinks he acts guilty.
But smooth, pretty, black Susan has already taken his retainer. And petitioned the district attorney for copies of the evidence. Just doing what she’s been told to do as her job.
Lawson and Brown are trapped. They pull out all the stops and eventually find their handle to the case. Their client is innocent. They have proof. But it has to be a surprise; it has to be withheld until it is seen in court. The prosecutors must not learn anything about their discovery.
Since you have seen all three other Mamet plays you know Susan has set them up, you know Susan has betrayed them, and you know why. You know she’s guilty, which, of course, she does not admit. And you talk your head off with everyone else who has seen the play about these lawyers, that girl, and especially about Race. Mamet does not care if you have seen that he has a formula he has used again and again, as long as you bite into the topic of the play and discuss. He has given you a good piece of showbiz, even better because it’s a burning topic, far from resolved, far less resolvable than his play. Do not be distracted by the fact that the last three plays have had women betray men, that is not the topic. But then, why has that been the device? Doesn’t it have to be deliberate if it has been repeated in three recent Mamet productions? Or does it?
Mamet has directed his play expertly. He has allowed James Spader and David Alan Grier to give knockout performances, reining in Richard Thomas as the guilty-innocent client. He has taken the shaky chance of entrusting the pivotal role of the betrayer to a shaky neophyte, perhaps because that would play as character elements in the role. It doesn’t work. Washington’s film work has not prepared her for the stage, especially in a Mamet play, all Mamet plays having an underlying base of just plain toughness.
Santo Loquasto has given us a magnificent, rundown, old fashioned lawyer’s office with a raked, bare wooden floor, telling us more about these lawyers than they tell us about themselves. Such wonderful stagecraft on his part and Mamet’s. Now if only I liked a single character…
Ethel Barrymore Theater. 243 West 47th Street. Tickets: $59.50-$121.50. Tue 7 pm, Wed-Sat 8 pm .Mats, Wed, Sat 2 pm, Sun 3 pm.
Race. Another biting Mamet drama built around a theme that underlies the American psyche. A white man is accused of raping a black girl. Firework performances.
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