Smart People: Prejudice Simulator
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Review In Progress:: UPDATE 4/7/2018
Review In Progress:: UPDATE 4/7/2018
Spoiler Free
I always feel that socially progressive plays like Smart People are wasted on the Chicago Theater community: a collective mostly composed of white (liberal appearing) retirees who can afford the luxury of the occasional escape to the theater and dine upon plays such as these for the nourishment to grow intriguing food for thoughts at their next dinner party. As a firm believer of the social contract, and art's ability to inspire change of heart, mind, and soul what good can Smart People really have on people who are already set in their ways? I immediately thought "this play should be performed in Texas" or some other place where this hard to swallow pill may be more effectively prescribed. But the play has traveled, from Huntington Theater Company in Boston to Chicago, to Tennessee and will continue to travel. It's just that good. I can't help but hear my Adaptations Professor speak her reassuring words. She said your performance is successful if it creates a (healthy) dialogue. And that's what Smart People is a healthy, raw dialogue. A compelling social experiment, that has us thirsty for the results. A chess game of personalities, wit and intelligence. An attempt to crack the nut open and let the chips fall where they may in an ever oscillating sine wave of rights and wrongs, proper and improper conduct, PC and just plain ignorant. It's a window to our own world, our own biases and why it's okay to talk about them because talking around them might just make shit worse.
Yes it's on the nose. But its also in your media, your social media, on the news, and everywhere else. So you may as well enjoy it.
I'm familiar with Lydia Diamonds work: a wordsmith, a mistress of sentences, syntax, and prose. She's a genius by all accounts and the composition of Smart People needs no further clarification. (see Spoiler Review Below).
Lydia Diamond took Four smart people: Brian White (Erik Hellman), a white- yes that's the joke- Neurosurgeon at Harvard who has cracked the source code for prejudice and can prove that it's innate in white people's brains but discovers that the implications of his research may do more harm than good; Ginny Yang (Deanna Myers), an Asian Psychologist also at Harvard who studies the psychological impact of anxiety and depression upon Asian women and feels she's not doing enough; Valerie Johnston, a Black MFA trained actress working in the Boston Theatre Company who's trying to thrive being typecast but is conflicted of her own blackness; And Jackson Moore a Black surgical intern at Harvard Medical school has intelligence that his superiors prefer to bury, than cultivate in a world that needs people like him to fight for people like him.
What happens when you take four people, all victims of a system who just doesn't want to hear them, and have their backgrounds clash among the most important presidential election in the history of the United States since John F Kennedy? Flanked by the most important scientific discovery since Darwin? Well there are no casualties, unless you count the wounded egos. But MAN is there collateral damage. Especially when you discover that we're all prejudice to some degree. White people mistake black people for nurses rather than doctors, black people mistake artsy black girls for uppity. This engagement of different backgrounds creates a near infinite number of preconceived prejudice variables and notions. All of which can happen pretty much on sight. Lydia isn't asking us to keep tip-toeing around the issues at hand, bury our heads in our pillows, become color, classification, and creed blind. I believe she's saying it's human nature to judge, categorize and stereotype. No it's not okay. Just talk about it. Don't get seduced by our own hubris and think that we're immune to it.
It doesn't take a compass to feel the social poles of right and wrong shifting. We are in a as Lydia puts it "a seismic time" of social change. And there's nothing wrong with engaging one another, healthily to get to the bottom of our own biases and create a better future. Fan of theatre or not. Go see it!
The play's dialogue and complex characters is what carries the play through. So it's only right for Scenic Designer Collette Pollard to let these phenomenal actors steer the action on what would be a seemingly minimal set. I'm familiar with Collete Pollard's work and her ability to do more with less. She is familiar with Lydia's work having designed for Harriet Jacobs, and it's exemplified by the way they creatively mesh together. Collete, Lydia and Hallie are a triple threat in delivering a synchronized production where one vision perfectly melds with the other.
Smart People took place in a 3/4 round, with the audience seated on three sides of the stage. The set consisted of all black furniture: two black tables with wastebaskets underneath, a black cushioned love seat with room for two, a pair of black benches and stools. Keeping things colorless reduces the attention one has on the set itself and allows us to focus on the actors all the while affording the action of the play just enough of what it needs to create complex locations: a locker room, offices, the clinic, brain's home, and many more. It also does not distract us when Lighting Designer Kathy A Perkins segments the actors under their own spotlight for their solo scenes, or places the actors in another location entirely- like after one of Valerie's shows for instance. Downstage lies a raised platform where Valerie will often audition for roles or she will correspond with a apologetic Jackson. Behind that is a segmented screen where the unthinkable happens.
Projections can easily be construed as extraneous, and showy if not utilized properly. But when you have Brian lecturing to his students and delivering the findings of his research with- as the script says, visual aids. Or having the ensemble watching Former President Obama's inauguration speech, this segmented screen is the perfect, and beautiful solution to the play's needs. I was impressed.
Yes it's on the nose. But its also in your media, your social media, on the news, and everywhere else. So you may as well enjoy it.
I'm familiar with Lydia Diamonds work: a wordsmith, a mistress of sentences, syntax, and prose. She's a genius by all accounts and the composition of Smart People needs no further clarification. (see Spoiler Review Below).
Lydia Diamond took Four smart people: Brian White (Erik Hellman), a white- yes that's the joke- Neurosurgeon at Harvard who has cracked the source code for prejudice and can prove that it's innate in white people's brains but discovers that the implications of his research may do more harm than good; Ginny Yang (Deanna Myers), an Asian Psychologist also at Harvard who studies the psychological impact of anxiety and depression upon Asian women and feels she's not doing enough; Valerie Johnston, a Black MFA trained actress working in the Boston Theatre Company who's trying to thrive being typecast but is conflicted of her own blackness; And Jackson Moore a Black surgical intern at Harvard Medical school has intelligence that his superiors prefer to bury, than cultivate in a world that needs people like him to fight for people like him.
What happens when you take four people, all victims of a system who just doesn't want to hear them, and have their backgrounds clash among the most important presidential election in the history of the United States since John F Kennedy? Flanked by the most important scientific discovery since Darwin? Well there are no casualties, unless you count the wounded egos. But MAN is there collateral damage. Especially when you discover that we're all prejudice to some degree. White people mistake black people for nurses rather than doctors, black people mistake artsy black girls for uppity. This engagement of different backgrounds creates a near infinite number of preconceived prejudice variables and notions. All of which can happen pretty much on sight. Lydia isn't asking us to keep tip-toeing around the issues at hand, bury our heads in our pillows, become color, classification, and creed blind. I believe she's saying it's human nature to judge, categorize and stereotype. No it's not okay. Just talk about it. Don't get seduced by our own hubris and think that we're immune to it.
It doesn't take a compass to feel the social poles of right and wrong shifting. We are in a as Lydia puts it "a seismic time" of social change. And there's nothing wrong with engaging one another, healthily to get to the bottom of our own biases and create a better future. Fan of theatre or not. Go see it!
50 Dollar Ticket. 2 Hour Drive (There and Back). 2 Hour Play w/ Intermission. Good Tasting Water.
Not A Waste Of Time
Technical Minutiae
SPOILER ALERT
I'm familiar with Hallie Gordon's work at UIC Theatre's The Story, which, under her tutelage was reduced to a mere fable. I find Smart People to be life line in the quicksand of redemption for Director Gordon as all the characters took their own moments, and obviously enjoyed their roles. But the play isn't without it's faults.
Lyida Diamond has most of the characters substance delivered in captivating soliloquy so by the time they clash we know what they've been through. Here we discover Brian White for instance is getting his funding pulled because the subject of his research is too controversial- and he might have called his lecture students stupid racists. Genny Yang has a shopping addiction and the most stubborn patient Ahkiko who claims her head is on straight, but identifies as white. Jackson keeps getting evening shifts and bedpan duty for his "hot headed" attitude, and Valerie is struggling to flourish in a theater world while living as the failed child, to make matters worse she cant even act 'black' well without knowing she's better than that. These solo stories evolve as they meet each other but the bulk of this mechanic lies Act 1, and after a while it makes it drag. Especially because some facts are just left behind in Act 1 while others are pulled through. Jackson's cracked out relative Willy (?) that he gave 500 dollars to is never mentioned again for instance and was obviously padding to begin his dialogue with Genny as she mistakes him for a receptionist and not a doctor. But Genny's regular patient Ahkiko, of whom we only see mentioned in dialogue has an entire character arc that makes Genny question the role she plays as a psychologist. The fact that some of the theatrical facts in these monologue sections are continued throughout and others aren't proves by design that they are backstory content left to be rendered irrelevant at playwrights whim. I find that Director Gordon knew these had the potential to clog of the flow of the play, so the overall rhythm was fast and witty. But I know I'm not invested if I'm writing more than listening.
"I'm the one being treated like a Nigger" exclaims Brian to Jackson at dinner when, He, Valerie, and Genny are trying to comfort him from the shadow of unemployment that looms over his head. Erik Hellman doesn't just say the N word outright, Lydia has him tease us with the unforgivable social taboo first. "I'm the one being treated like Ni... like a nig" and you can tell in Erik's face that he's knows he thinks he's right, and that he deserves to say it but there's something holding him back. Something that's causing the frustration to build to the front of his skull and pop a vain on his crimson forehead. One he lets the word drop Jackson immediately leaps to his feet, gets in his face, curls his lips and you can feel the tension in the air. My peer to my left gripped my arm, the setting of the theater afforded me to gaze into other patrons who looked equally stunned. White people just don't say that word and walk away. Not if you can help it. But Julian Parker let it swell for a beat, and lets Brian live, because that's his friend. There were sighs of relief sure, but I was still holding my breath. I wanted Jackson to let him have it, but Jackson and Brian are best friends.The play basketball together. They're as Brian says "evolved" and they respect one another as intelligent people. I enjoy that Julian doesn't default to the stereotypical response here of raging on stage and acting like (for an intents and purposes) a "thug". You can tell on stage that he considers his friendship with Brian, and decides to be the bigger man, only to let him have it later intellectually. And boy does he let him have it. But there are other emotionally dense moment's like these that just fell flat.
"You could have just called..." Is what Jackson says to a confused Valerie who returns to the clinic to see him after a night of running all three bases: dinner, sex, and an ugly fight. You can tell Kayla Carter does not know why her character Valerie wants to apologize. And neither did I. Jackson put Valerie through the black test, he hid the hot sauce to see if Valerie would ask for it, to season her greens and still called her sedity. So why in the world would she go back to him? Well obviously she still had feelings for him, feelings worth pursuing. And the dialogue tells us this but Kayla's action does not, Jackson doesn't even do much speaking in that scene and his clap back suffocates her performance with one line. Later Jackson catches one of the plays Valerie is in and it's obvious that he feels guilty having passed up on an opportunity with an amazing woman. His physicality tries to take up space with his warm remarks as he tries to shower Valerie with compliments but her shoulder positioning and disengaged body language obviously revealed that she's just not interested in a second shot at this. It was nice her be so decisive here rather than before, where her choices did not coincide with the intention of the character.
"Can you just accept that I'm better than you at everything?" Says Ginny to a captivated Brian who's trying to get Ginny to slow down her steamroller mentality and let Brain take care of her. Only for Ginny to check Brian on his "yellow fever" in the worst, most seductive way possible by transforming herself into the geisha Brian want's her to be. It arouses Brian, turns him on, Ginny gives Brian a night he will hopefully never forget. That Ginny isn't and will never be that woman. Deanna Myers completely owns Ginny Yang, you can tell by way she let's Ginny's wit and dialogue fill the room from the inside out and moves through space like a vector of direction and magnitude, commanding our respect and attention. Ginny is a person who would rather let her conversational opponent dig themselves into a ditch, rather than do it for them because she's a psychologist, analyzing and exposing is her trade, she knows people and she wears it charmingly on her sleeves. Her solo scenes are our favorite, and Lydia knows this, so Ginny appears to have the bulk of them. Whether she's chewing out a receptionist for not letting her use an expired coupon, or making her points subtlety and sarcastically by literally sitting on the edge of the set while Jackson, and Brian argue about black and white proving again that other minorities are often left out of these controversial debates, Deanna is extremely entertaining to watch. And with Hallie's direction she was brought to life and cemented in our memories.
"I'm the one being treated like a Nigger" exclaims Brian to Jackson at dinner when, He, Valerie, and Genny are trying to comfort him from the shadow of unemployment that looms over his head. Erik Hellman doesn't just say the N word outright, Lydia has him tease us with the unforgivable social taboo first. "I'm the one being treated like Ni... like a nig" and you can tell in Erik's face that he's knows he thinks he's right, and that he deserves to say it but there's something holding him back. Something that's causing the frustration to build to the front of his skull and pop a vain on his crimson forehead. One he lets the word drop Jackson immediately leaps to his feet, gets in his face, curls his lips and you can feel the tension in the air. My peer to my left gripped my arm, the setting of the theater afforded me to gaze into other patrons who looked equally stunned. White people just don't say that word and walk away. Not if you can help it. But Julian Parker let it swell for a beat, and lets Brian live, because that's his friend. There were sighs of relief sure, but I was still holding my breath. I wanted Jackson to let him have it, but Jackson and Brian are best friends.The play basketball together. They're as Brian says "evolved" and they respect one another as intelligent people. I enjoy that Julian doesn't default to the stereotypical response here of raging on stage and acting like (for an intents and purposes) a "thug". You can tell on stage that he considers his friendship with Brian, and decides to be the bigger man, only to let him have it later intellectually. And boy does he let him have it. But there are other emotionally dense moment's like these that just fell flat.
"You could have just called..." Is what Jackson says to a confused Valerie who returns to the clinic to see him after a night of running all three bases: dinner, sex, and an ugly fight. You can tell Kayla Carter does not know why her character Valerie wants to apologize. And neither did I. Jackson put Valerie through the black test, he hid the hot sauce to see if Valerie would ask for it, to season her greens and still called her sedity. So why in the world would she go back to him? Well obviously she still had feelings for him, feelings worth pursuing. And the dialogue tells us this but Kayla's action does not, Jackson doesn't even do much speaking in that scene and his clap back suffocates her performance with one line. Later Jackson catches one of the plays Valerie is in and it's obvious that he feels guilty having passed up on an opportunity with an amazing woman. His physicality tries to take up space with his warm remarks as he tries to shower Valerie with compliments but her shoulder positioning and disengaged body language obviously revealed that she's just not interested in a second shot at this. It was nice her be so decisive here rather than before, where her choices did not coincide with the intention of the character.
"Can you just accept that I'm better than you at everything?" Says Ginny to a captivated Brian who's trying to get Ginny to slow down her steamroller mentality and let Brain take care of her. Only for Ginny to check Brian on his "yellow fever" in the worst, most seductive way possible by transforming herself into the geisha Brian want's her to be. It arouses Brian, turns him on, Ginny gives Brian a night he will hopefully never forget. That Ginny isn't and will never be that woman. Deanna Myers completely owns Ginny Yang, you can tell by way she let's Ginny's wit and dialogue fill the room from the inside out and moves through space like a vector of direction and magnitude, commanding our respect and attention. Ginny is a person who would rather let her conversational opponent dig themselves into a ditch, rather than do it for them because she's a psychologist, analyzing and exposing is her trade, she knows people and she wears it charmingly on her sleeves. Her solo scenes are our favorite, and Lydia knows this, so Ginny appears to have the bulk of them. Whether she's chewing out a receptionist for not letting her use an expired coupon, or making her points subtlety and sarcastically by literally sitting on the edge of the set while Jackson, and Brian argue about black and white proving again that other minorities are often left out of these controversial debates, Deanna is extremely entertaining to watch. And with Hallie's direction she was brought to life and cemented in our memories.
The play's dialogue and complex characters is what carries the play through. So it's only right for Scenic Designer Collette Pollard to let these phenomenal actors steer the action on what would be a seemingly minimal set. I'm familiar with Collete Pollard's work and her ability to do more with less. She is familiar with Lydia's work having designed for Harriet Jacobs, and it's exemplified by the way they creatively mesh together. Collete, Lydia and Hallie are a triple threat in delivering a synchronized production where one vision perfectly melds with the other.
Smart People took place in a 3/4 round, with the audience seated on three sides of the stage. The set consisted of all black furniture: two black tables with wastebaskets underneath, a black cushioned love seat with room for two, a pair of black benches and stools. Keeping things colorless reduces the attention one has on the set itself and allows us to focus on the actors all the while affording the action of the play just enough of what it needs to create complex locations: a locker room, offices, the clinic, brain's home, and many more. It also does not distract us when Lighting Designer Kathy A Perkins segments the actors under their own spotlight for their solo scenes, or places the actors in another location entirely- like after one of Valerie's shows for instance. Downstage lies a raised platform where Valerie will often audition for roles or she will correspond with a apologetic Jackson. Behind that is a segmented screen where the unthinkable happens.
Projections can easily be construed as extraneous, and showy if not utilized properly. But when you have Brian lecturing to his students and delivering the findings of his research with- as the script says, visual aids. Or having the ensemble watching Former President Obama's inauguration speech, this segmented screen is the perfect, and beautiful solution to the play's needs. I was impressed.
The overall captivating premise of the play and its execution keeps me from nitpicking too much. It's a hike up there to Writer's for sure but the theater is beautiful as is the play. If you can, go see it. This investment is too lucrative to turn down.
-Kham
Great review!
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