From Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet, comes his most explosive four-letter word yet. Race.
Race is the riveting new play by America’s foremost playwright, Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-Plow, American Buffalo, November).
Directed by the playwright, it stars Emmy Award winner James Spader (“Boston Legal,” Sex, Lies and Videotape), Tony nominee and television star David Alan Grier (“A Soldier’s Story,” “In Living Color”, “Chocolate News”), Kerry Washington (Ray, Lakeview Terrace) and Richard Thomas (“The Waltons,” Democracy, Twelve Angry Men).
David Mamet's new play, Race (Barrymore Theatre), is all blunt truthfulness—some of which, this being a Mamet play, naturally turns out to conceal lies, or to mask deeper, darker truths. Played fast, under the author's direction, its 80 or so minutes feel like a speedy round of post-Shavian ping-pong. Debating whether or not to defend a rich man (Richard Thomas) accused of rape in what's apparently a clear-cut case with racially inflammatory content, a mixed-race pair of law partners (James Spader and David Alan Grier) and their female assistant (Kerry Washington) rattle around in their spacious office like video-game pieces powered by an unseen joystick, zinging Mamet's poison-dart lines at one another. The end is a Mamet end: Somebody lied, somebody betrayed the side, nobody wins.
The problem with 'Race' is that it's a bit too familiar. Specifically, it plays like a cross between Mr. Mamet's 'Oleanna' and his screenplay for 'The Verdict.' I can't say much more than that without giving away the 'surprises' sprinkled throughout the plot, in which two lawyers, one white (James Spader) and one black (David Alan Grier), decide whether to defend a famous millionaire (Richard Thomas) who is accused of raping a young black woman—a decision complicated by the fact that one of their employees (Kerry Washington) is also a young black woman. But those who know Mr. Mamet's work more than casually will likely be able to guess many of the directions in which he takes this conceit, and that's a big part of what's wrong with 'Race.'
2009 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play | David Alan Grier |
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