David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Race” was performed on Broadway two years before Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York for allegedly sexually assaulting a chamber maid who worked at the inn at which he was staying. But like the Strauss-Kahn scandal, Mamet’s play is steeped in the issues of class, power, privilege, education, and, obviously, race.
Set in the office of law partners Henry Brown and Jack Lawson, the play hinges on the case of Charles Strictland, a while man who has been accused of raping a black woman. As Brown, Lawson, and a younger attorney, Susan, discuss how best to represent Strictland, the trio also debate how differences – in color, gender, ethnicity and class – foster a lack of communication and breed resentment.
Theatrical embellishments are kept to a minimum, leaving audience members to focus on Mamet’s script.
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This production of the play is its New Jersey premiere. “Race” debuted on Broadway in 2009. That production ended last year. It’s rare, said Cockrell, for a small theater such as J City to get the opportunity to premiere a well-known script by an established playwright.
“Our director and artistic director, Sandy Cockrell, began negotiations very early on to see if we could get Mamet’s permission to produce Race…A play like this would normally go to much larger theater company,” he said. “But I think one of the reasons why we ultimately got the right to do it is because Sandy has a very clean, stripped down approach to directing, a style that lends itself very nicely to this particular play.”
Cockrell’s directorial style, he added, means that the set design, props, and other theatrical embellishments are kept to a minimum, thus leaving the audience to focus more on the four actors and the dialogue of Mamet’s script.
Like all J City Theater shows, “Race” will be performed in the round in the company’s 50-seat theater in St. Michael’s Church. The close, intimate setting of the theater, said Cockrell, adds to the intensity of “doing this play in this theater. But we’ve found that our audiences appreciate that style, even if it’s jarring for them to hear some of the dialogue. And there is some tough dialogue in this play.”
At the end of the first act, Lawson and Susan are debating the Strictland case when Susan tells Lawson, “This isn’t about sex. It’s about race.”
“What’s the difference,” Lawson asks. “It’s a complicated world, full of misunderstandings. That’s why we have lawyers.”
“Race” will be performed by J City Theater through Oct. 22 at St. Michael’s Church, 252 Ninth St., in Hamilton Park. Performances begin at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased online at www.jcity.or or by calling (800) 838-3006.
E-mail E. Assata Wright at awright@hudsonreporter.com.