| . | 09/15/2009
Race Music
By: Deirdre Donovan
Brandon Jones Photo credit: Carlo Damocles
Another play about racism? Just when you think that nothing new can be said about racism in America, Warren Bodow comes along with his play, Race Music. Under the auspices of the Diverse City Theater Company, this work uncovers a provocative instance of racial profiling in 1999 in a fictive classical music radio station in a Midwestern city. Under the unblinking direction of Victor Lirio (Artistic Director of Diverse City Theater Company), this drama explores how racism insidiously infiltrates our culture and contaminates our private and personal lives.
Two plots are tightly intertwined into one story here. The main one revolves around LeBron Malek (Brandon Jones), the young black classical music lover who runs smack up against prejudice when interviewing for a radio-announcer position at WCLS. Although he is extremely qualified for the job, it soon becomes evident that Harvey (Chris Ceraso), the bigoted president of the radio station, has no intention of hiring him. Harvey’s young assistant Caroline (Teresa Stephenson) gently tries to nudge her boss into giving him the position, but she soon realizes that his prejudice runs too deep. The other plot works in counterpoint to this, centering on Lebron’s relationship with his mother Alma Malek (Penelope Lowder). A devoted son, he has an extremely difficult time accepting that his single mother is rekindling a relationship with an old flame who is white. Both plots fuse over the course of the evening, allowing us to bear witness to racism-- and reverse racism—before
the closing scene.
The problem with Race Music, however, is that it has no intention of letting any character lose. The author, who fills the play with verbal battles about race, wants everybody to have their cake and eat it too. Not that there’s anything wrong with a “happy ending,” or seeing characters evolve for the better. But the denouement is overly sentimental. And the closing scene with LeBron, Caroline, and Peggy Lee seems a bit contrived.
Happily, the acting ensemble is solid. Chris Cesaro, as Harvey, gets under the skin of his elitist character, and captures that stubborn self-made man who’s not about to change his bigoted attitude towards Blacks. His love of classical music coupled with years of gritty professional work obviously make him extremely resistant to hiring a young Black, albeit a talented one. Brandon Jones, as Lebron Malek, truly inhabits the latter-day Black who’s determined to crack the thick glass ceiling of the classical music radio station. He’s no small dreamer and has a bulldog’s tenacity in battle. The other characters rounding out the six-member cast are competent as well: Teresa Stephenson as Harvey’s young “Latina” assistant, Penelope Lowder as Alma Malek, Kevin Kelleher as Mr. King, and Julia Sun (though on stage only briefly) as Peggy Lee.
The music in Race Music is a rich smorgasbord of classical composers. And who can resist snatches of Brahms, Bizet, Strauss, Beethoven, Bach, and Mendelssohn? This isn’t elevator music. These compositional fragments are an organic part of the work and propel the narrative forward.
In spite of its rather mawkish ending, Race Music succeeds for its fresh handling of racial stereotyping. Perhaps its strongest point is showing us that a radio station can all-too-easily side-step affirmative action in its hiring policy. After all, unlike their counterparts in television, radio announcers are not seen by their listening audience. And a bigoted radio station owner can certainly exploit this “invisibility” by excluding Blacks from his station.
Warren Bodow’s new play reminds us that racism, unfortunately, has not gone the way of the dodo. It is something that has existed in our culture right up to the present. Set in the pre-Obama era, this work illuminates that racism can resurface at any time, in any place. But, gratefully, it shows us that people’s attitudes towards race can change.
The Beckett Theatre, 410 West 42nd Street, Tickets are $18, Call Ticket Central at 212-279-4200 or http://www.ticketcentral.com
Through September 19.
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