Mercury Theatre Colchester has arrived at the Oxford Playhouse this week with their polished, confident, and cringingly funny production of Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park. Set in the same suburban American house, with the first act set in the 1950s and the second in the modern day, Norris explores some fairly uncomfortable themes of societal prejudice and resentment with humour and clever, realistic dialogue.
The first act centres around Bev and Russ, a grieving couple who are attempting to sell their house and move away from the memories of their son, who, it transpires, committed suicide in an upstairs bedroom on his return from the war in Korea.
Rebecca Manley excels in this act as the sunny, but brittle Bev, her shiny cheerfulness always seems ready to shatter as she tries to persuade her husband to accept help from his neighbours to cope with his obvious depression. These neighbours are their local clergyman, Jim, and another couple, Karl and Betsy, who appear well-meaning, but their conversation becomes increasingly fraught as Karl tries to convince Bev and Russ that it would be unwise to sell their house to the black family who are meant to be moving in. As Karl “justifies” his problems with integrating the neighbourhood, both couples try to involve Bev’s black housekeeper Francine and her husband Albert. The scene is excruciating, yet compelling – Karl, played by Ben Deery, is objectionable in his insistence that a black family in the house could only prove detrimental to the “community”.
In the second act, and fifty years on, the “community” still exists, but it has changed dramatically. Again, the house is being sold, but this time to a young white couple, Steve and Lindsay, from within a primarily black neighbourhood. The couple want to rebuild the house for their growing family, but are undergoing negotiations with local residents, represented by a black couple, Kevin and Lena. The meeting begins cordially enough, but although the language and ways of conversation has changed, the play resonates with how close to the surface old prejudices can be. Steve (also played by Deery) is using completely different language than that used by Karl, and yet his racial bias shows through in his impassioned speech which culminates in a series of offensive jokes. Lindsay, played by Rebecca Oldfield, desperately tries to distance herself from his jokes with the pathetic line ‘Half of my friends are black’, which makes the audience laugh awkwardly in recognition.
This is an engaging and hard-hitting play which will have you shifting uncomfortably in your seat. Come to the Oxford Playhouse this week and enjoy being challenged (but you should also be prepared to laugh). ★★★★☆ @BookingAround 18th May 2016
