Saturday night I attended Young Jean Lee’s Theatre Company’s performance of “Straight White Men”. The show was a well balanced combination of humor, desperate seriousness, social theory, and reality. It all mixed together to create a production that posed sharp poignant questions.
The music as the audience sat down was loud, with a heavy bass and a female rapper. This seemed to put some audience members not at their leisure. A friend who I went to the show with thought it might be the setting. Having this music for pre-show enjoyment, instead of the more “traditional” classical music, threw some people off kilter. As we saw later, the music made a reappearance in the play itself at a key bonding moment for the family. I thought it actually gave the event a more social-party feel, except for the fact that it was a tad loud. I had to learn in close and shout in my friend’s ear to talk to her before the show, which was annoying. But the music became less noticeable as more people arrived and added their voices to the noise, helping to enhance the social party atmosphere I mentioned earlier.
Turning my attention to the stage while I sat waiting for the show to start, I had a good chance to admire the set. The entire production took place within the living room. It had just the right amount of clutter or purposeless objects that I believed people actually lived there. Using corners and suggestive lighting, it looked like this wasn’t just a set piece but part of a larger house that characters could disappear into the depths of.
I am usually not a fan of seeing crew members during the show. But in this production, it worked rather beautifully. The show consisted of three scenes and between each scene the stage lights dimmed and we’d watch the crew members. They brought on objects, brought off objects, fixed the furniture, etc. It was like we were watching how the objects moved and changed over the elapsed time between scenes; the time that wasn’t being performed for us onstage. It was a really interesting directorial choice which in this production really added to the sense of time and place.
The story itself followed a very logical progress, so that audience members were engaged but not overtaxed in following the complicated identity search that was being enacted for them. This was largely in part due to the chemistry of the actors on stage. Since it was so well written, the show allowed for the actors to really dive into their characters and create very real personas. The rapport between the brothers was immediately relatable to me (but then again I have a lot of siblings). Playing the family invented socially conscious game titled “Privilege” held the right amount of chaos between members.The Christmas traditions that were still faithfully kept, despite the brothers perhaps (or perhaps not) having outgrown them. I believed this was a family; their relationships made sense. I was given all I needed to understand why he said that or they didn’t agree.
Because of the believable nature of the characters and setting, I had a context in which to place the larger issues the show posed. Is “failure” ever acceptable? What happens when you feel the very fact that you exist is a problem? And are there any principles you have to fall back on if this is the case? What is there to guide how to live your life? Is being an ally enough? How do you not abuse the privilege you have?
Let there be no mistake: This was not a show to victimize or condemn straight white men. It merely posed both obvious and subtle questions about the flaws in our society by bringing it into a very real and intimate context.
I enjoyed my evening at the Mendelssohn Theatre and Young Jean Lee’s production. I’m left with more questions and fewer answers, because, as all good theater does, it challenged what I assumed and changed how I think. I look forward to the next time Young Jean Lee’s Theatre Company makes its way to Ann Arbor!
