Mamet play fleshes out issues of ‘Race’

Race. It’s discomfiting. We try to ignore it, claim to see past it—in discussions we dance around it.

Interracial relationships are lauded by many but lived by few. Have you ever seriously dated someone outside your race? Taken him or her home to meet mom? Even at Columbia, a largely liberal university where many students have at least one friend outside their race, interracial coupling is a delicate subject—one we confront wearing kid-gloves when we have to discuss it.

Every February, during Black History Month, we are reminded that the lens through which we view the world and each other is still, quite literally, black and white. Notwithstanding the immense social progress society has made since Black History Month was founded in 1926 by historian Carter Woodson, many wonder if we will ever fully move past racial prejudices and stereotypes both blatant and latent. Is a post-racial America possible?
David Mamet certainly doesn’t seem to think so.

“Race”, a currently running Broadway production is written and directed by (in)famous playwright David Mamet. Known for writing lightning-speed dialogue (often peppered with profanity) and dramas that unflinchingly tackle controversial issues, Pulitzer-prize winning Mamet has won Tony Award nominations for two of his plays and Oscar nominations for two screenplays. “Race”, Mamet’s most recent play starring James Spader (“Boston Legal”), Kerry Washington (“Ray”), David Alan Grier (“In Living Color”), and Richard Thomas (“The Waltons”), deals with the question of race in the 21st century in an incisive, painfully honest manner. So incisive and honest, in fact, that midway through the play the delightful older Caucasian gentleman sitting next to me—with whom I had become fast friends in the 15 minutes before the play began—leaned over to me and whispered, “Do you feel uncomfortable? Because I do.” I couldn’t help but concur.

Race follows Jack Lawson (Spader) and Henry Brown (Grier), partners in a successful law firm, as they debate whether or not to accept a highly lucrative and controversial case defending Charles Strickland (Thomas), a wealthy white man accused of raping his black mistress. Susan (Washington), a new, smart-yet-unseasoned lawyer at the firm immediately assumes that Strickland is guilty, but the audience can clearly discern that this assumption is based mainly on the grounds of his whiteness, wealth, and privilege rather than any real evidence (Susan conveniently claims that he just “looks like a guilty man”). Resulting from a series of seemingly accidental errors on Susan’s part, the firm accepts the case. The question of who is guilty and what they are guilty of is complicated by each moment of the play. Each scene presents a new proverbial turn of the screw, and even those characters that seem above the fray—the seemingly unbiased and upright—are proved to be perhaps more disingenuous than the supposed perpetrators.

Mamet paints a bleak but infinitely provocative picture of race relations in America. Despite the somewhat demoralizing aspects of the play, the fast-paced dialogue crackles with intellect, humor, and wit. By the play’s end, any hope of an imminent prejudice-free America is painfully deflated, but ironically, by examining the questions that Race raises, we may edge closer to a racism-free future. Even in the best-case scenario, however, it doesn’t seem that glittering future will be arriving anytime soon.

Nneka McGuire is a Columbia College junior majoring in creative writing. The Fun, the Fantastical, and the Freakish runs alternate Fridays.