In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Theatre Journal 56.1 (2004) 105-108


[Access article in PDF]
Race: How Blacks and Whites Feel and Think About The American Obsession. Based on the book by Studs Terkel and adapted by Joy Gregory and David Schwimmer. Lookingglass Theatre Company, Theatre in the Water Tower Water Works, Chicago. 14 August 2003.

Longtime Lookingglass Theatre Company member and television star David Schwimmer inaugurated the company's new downtown Chicago space this summer with his own production of Studs Terkel's Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel [End Page 105]


Click for larger view		 Figure 1
Reginald Nelson and Andy White in Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession. Photo by: Michael Brosilow.

[End Page 106] About the American Obsession. The adaptation, by Schwimmer and Joy Gregory, marked the second Chicago stage version of Terkel's 1992 bestseller, an oral history collection of interviews with average citizens. In typical Lookingglass ensemble style, the twelve-member, racially diverse cast was directed to change roles and scenes in a story-theatre approach that created a broad panorama of accounts. This served to highlight the energy and intensity of the compelling performers, but the storytelling mode also distracted from and softened the piece's potential power. For example, in the opening monologue, as the mother of civil rights martyr Emmet Till mourned her dead son, she was accompanied by a multiracial chorus of women who mirrored her sorrow with empathetic gestures and poses. However, rather than confronting us head-on with the character's pain, Schwimmer chose to filter it through a kind of automatic healing before any catharsis had been earned. While the text relates stories of bitter harmony and deep-set prejudice, the production presented a diverse ensemble working together (changing scenery, sharing narration) in perfect harmony. The cumulative effect of these choices made palpable tension a rare commodity in this production. The frictions inherent in the material were lost amid the transparent fellowship of the Lookingglass actors.

Race was most effective when individuals were allowed to shine and simply tell their stories. Working in the round in the new flexible-seating theatre, Schwimmer frequently had actors break the fourth wall, most successfully with Anthony Fleming III's turn as a street peddler, pawning off tube socks and pirated DVDs on unsuspecting audience members. Fleming alternately amused and reminded us that our laughter and patronage only fed his character's desperate economic circumstances. Joe Sikora's portrait of a Chicago Polish American trying to find his identity in the complex urban mosaic—where he is antagonized by blacks for being white and by whites for the stereotypes associated with his immigrant heritage—was a sensitive and nuanced portrait and one that gave the play a wider perspective than just black versus white. More extended stories drew the audience into gripping narratives through multiple points of view—such as the klansman (powerfully played without cliché by Tony Fitzpatrick) who found himself partnering with black school board activists over the common cause of reforming their children's education. This narrative, along with a few of the other stories included in the script, highlighted Terkel's own thesis that class can trump race as both a divider and a unifier of Americans.

But such moments clashed with more gimmicky set pieces, such as the overlong mock TV game show, "Name That Stereotype," which put the actors through the embarrassing trial of enacting grating clichés to one-up each other in offensiveness. To be confronted with such taboo images can be powerful onstage, but as structured by Schwimmer and Gregory, the presentation still allowed audiences to laugh awkwardly, with the personas if not just atthem. (Cheryl Hamada's parody of all submissive Asian females included forcing a foot massage on a woman in the third row.) The company also assembled as students for a classroom discussion by a professor (Ricardo Gutierrez) on "Hispanics 101"—a thought-provoking catalogue that showed how we can demean people simply in how we classify them, but still the scene offered nothing more...

pdf

Share