Playwright and director Young Jean Lee said of audiences’ reactions to her latest play “The Shipment”: “Whether they loved it or hated it, they were still thinking about it long after the show was over. I feel really happy about that response.”
I saw the play earlier this week during its run at the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels and it’s true, I can’t stop thinking about it. The play deals with “black American identity politics” and is performed by an all-black cast. The audience is confronted with stereotypes and clichés of black identity, which are sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes funny, always thought-provoking.
“When starting a play, I ask myself, ‘What's the last play in the world I would ever want to write?’ Then I force myself to write it. I do this because I've found that the best way to make theater that unsettles and challenges my audience is to do things that make me uncomfortable”, Lee says on her website.
“The Shipment” is divided into two parts, the first being a bombardment of stereotypical black images. A young, black man tells his grandmother of his dream to be a rap star; he is then enticed into the world of drug dealing by a friend; he ends up in jail where he meets a record manager who turns him into a star. There’s music, there’s dance, there are hip-hop and rap rhythms, there’s street lingo and strong language. It’s fast-paced and funny.
About half-way through the 90-minute play, the tempo suddenly drops as the house lights go up and three of the actors take centre stage to sing a powerful a capella song (the lyrics are from Dark Center of the Universe by Modest Mouse). I can still hear the rhythms, words and harmonies. As Lee said in an interview with the festival organisers, “the audience is laughing at these stereotypes, and suddenly they see the performers as people, not stereotypes, and the performers are looking at them”. It acts as a transition to the starkly contrasting, naturalistic setting of the second part of the show.
The play is not about making white people feel bad about being white, but it is about raising questions about black identity and subverting stereotypes. It makes us, the audience, question our own attitudes towards and preconceived ideas of race, ask why we associate certain images with black people and others with white people, and wonder whether we all have some ingrained racism in us.
The show, which has so far been performed in New York and Brussels, is doing a worldwide tour. Click here to see where the play will be showing.
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