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Reviewed by:
  • Straight White Men by Young Jean Lee
  • Paul C. Castagno
Straight White Men. By Young Jean Lee. Directed by Shana Cooper. Studio Theatre, Washington, D.C. December 14, 2016.

Studio Theatre’s production of Young Jean Lee’s most realistic, and perhaps most controversial, play to date interrogated issues of privilege and identity facing straight white males in contemporary America. The production squarely confronted the dilemma of the oldest brother, Matt, who willingly effaced his education, ambition, and opportunity, and ultimately his will and birthright. Does giving voice to the “other” mean drowning in underachievement and accepting failure? Is the “voiceless” straight white man really the answer to satisfy the most radical Left? Positioned as the eponymous liberal, straight white male reviewing this production, I could not help but think how TrumpAmerica had impugned those fears into something far more pernicious. This production exemplified how a play’s message had changed in the heartbeat of an election.

Studio Theatre’s production opened with the swagger of the Stagehand-in-Charge, played by the Tanzanian-born actor Jeymee Semiti, a character that Lee had indicated should be transgender or a person of color. The statuesque Semiti boldly framed the production’s point of view from Lee’s position of “otherness” as an Asian woman. Setting the high-spirited tone of the production, the forty-something banker, Jake (Bruch Reed), was immersed in a Japanese video game while pestered by his brother, Drew (Avery Clark), a tenured academic and noted author who flitted around the stage like a dive bomber. This devolved into a hyperkinetic brawl, animating the trappings of Andrew Boyce’s frumpy living-room set, with vaults, couch dives, and Jake’s pain-inducing hammerlocks. While director Shana Cooper’s frenetic staging belied characters’ age or status, this exaggerated regression underscored how these mature white men aggressively pursued escape in their daily lives.

Cooper maximized the visual potency of Lee’s imagery, exploiting the playwright’s theatrical, funny props through carefully choreographed setups and displays. A seemingly random and chaotic scramble for snacks led to Drew’s discovery of their late mother’s converted Monopoly game that she had renamed Privilege. “Community Chest” cards became “Excuses” cards: “Pay fifty dollars to the Lesbian and Gay Community Services center.” The tolerant patriarch, Ed (Michael Winters), was further softened as he paraded center stage in oversized Puffin embroidered socks. Recently widowed, Ed would not begin dinner until his sons adorned their ridiculously undersized, childhood Christmas pajamas (Helen Huang, costume designer) that prompted a rap-driven cakewalk. Cooper scoured childhood backstories by fleshing out each actor’s distinctive reaction to shared memories, ranging from comic bonding moments to scatological stigmas and homophobic fears that had shaped their youth. Her directorial choices picked at these wounds to uncover the simultaneity of pain and intense laughter; for me, it recalled the famous “A” Ayckbourn effect: a moment of cognitive dissonance whereby the audience catches itself laughing at the moment of greatest pain for the character.

Through musical pastiche, Jake and Drew attempted to ignite the radical fervor and masterly organizational talents that had defined Matt’s [End Page 591]


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Michael Tisdale (Matt), Avery Clark (Drew), and Bruch Reed (Jake) in Straight White Men. (Photo: Teresa Wood.)

[End Page 592]


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Michael Tisdale (Matt), Avery Clark (Drew), and Bruch Reed (Jake) in Straight White Men. (Photo: Teresa Wood.)

youth. Ironically, the latter’s current torpor seemed a marker for the Left’s muted complacency versus the emboldened, fanatically strident Right that vaulted Trump into the White House. Played with range and nuance by an unkempt and tousled Michael Tisdale, Matt had founded the School for Young Revolutionaries; later, he had his high school teacher fired for casting an entirely white Oklahoma! Revealing Matt’s radical underpinnings, the trio’s chorus-line kicks to Matt’s “O-K-K-K lahoma” provided the production’s major coup de théâtre—including Nazi salutes, high-fives, goose-stepping, and contorting their bodies to form an iconic “K” tableau vivant. Cooper established the high point of hilarity and brotherly solidarity, exploiting Lee’s dramaturgical...

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