Clybourne Park
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Cititour.com Review
Clybourne Park is meticulously directed by Pam MacKinnon, and brilliantly acted by its original ensemble. Only two years old, Bruce Norris' masterpiece already has an amazing legacy. Winner of both the Pulitzer and the Olivier, the play got stellar reviews on both coasts and London--all before it ever debuted on Broadway. Now, this show about how race, prejudice and housing affects us all, has finally landed on the Great White Way--no pun intended--with as much hoopla as when it originated Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons.
Leaping off Lorraine Hansberry's iconic A Raisin in the Sun, Norris takes a "what if?" scenario to new heights. Clybourne Park is that neighborhood where the Youngers purchased a house. Here, in 1959, the first-act action concentrates on the white family selling the home and the "community group" intent on preventing the sale to a "colored" family. Act II brings us to 2009, when African-American members of the "community group" want the new white owners to curb their oversize renovation plans.
The cast does an incredible job embodying the time-shifting inhabitants as both self-conscious Fifties-era liberals/conservatives and their counterparts in the present day. Crystal Dickinson is a stand-out balancing a maid in Act I with Lena in Act II, a middle-class member of the group leading the charge against gentrification. Jeremy Shamos plays Karl in Act I (the same character Hansberry used to try to convince the Youngers not to buy) and the owner of the property in Act II. In both cases, he says out loud what most people keep behind closed doors.
Clybourne Park is acid-tongued funny and masterfully crafted. Norris has created an intellectual property which is instantly relatable.
By Lesley Alexander
Visit the Site
http://www.clybournepark.com
Cast
Crystal A. Dickinson, Brendan Griffin, Damon Gupton, Christina Kirk, Annie Parisse, Jeremy Shamos, Frank Wood
Open/Close Dates
Opening 3/26/2012
Closing 9/2/2012
Box Office
212-239-6200
Theatre Info
Walter Kerr Theatre
219 West 48th Street
New York, NY 10036
Map
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