**Spoiler alert**
I discuss the play in detail, so if you are planning on seeing Clybourne Park do not read this post.
Ever since Clybourne Park won the Tony Award for Best Play for 2012 I placed it on my “must see” list. With Broadway neck deep in celebrity driven projects it is rare to see a play containing racial underpinnings win the top award. I avoided reading anything about the story beforehand, since I like to be surprised.
Here is a brief description from the play’s website: CLYBOURNE PARK explodes in two outrageous acts set 50 years apart. Act One takes place in 1959, as nervous community leaders anxiously try to stop the sale of a home to a black family. Act Two is set in the same house in the present day, as the now predominantly African-American neighborhood battles to hold its ground in the face of gentrification.
Since we frequently talk about race issues here on the blog, I was curious how these issues would play out in live theater. Race issues often make people uncomfortable, and the director and playwright made some interesting choices on how to tell this story in a dramatic setting.
Act One introduces Russ (Frank Wood), whose monosyllabic responses to his wife’s nervous banter make for good comedy, but later reveal underlying 
problems in their marriage. When the local pastor, Father Jim (Brendan Griffin) and concerned neighbor, Karl (Jeremy Shamos) stop by the house the true gist of the story starts to simmer at first, builds to a boil, and ends with an all out blow out. Karl is concerned that Russ has sold his house to a black family, which in his mind could drag the neighborhood’s property values down and promote white flight. Russ seems to be surprised at this news at first, having been completely hands off with the realtor who sold his home, but warms to the news in an unanticipated way. The fact is, Russ sees this as an appropriate farewell to a community he secretly loathes. Russ feels his family was treated as pariahs because his only son committed suicide after returning from the Korean War under the suspicion of war crimes.
Independence ”that all men are created equal,” and over time equal rights have been gradually extended to different groups of people. However, equality has never been achieved without heated debate, despite our country’s founding principle that all people are created equal in the first place.
vehemently demanded the right to vote, think it was fine for African Americans to be denied this same right? It depends. My theory also includes the caveat that empathy for others does not always translate into citizens banding together for the greater good. Then again, the social evolution of the United States is progressing. This progression is the reason the language and message of equality remains relevant.
