Clybourne Park

photo by Michael Brosilow
Steppenwolf Theater Company

Beautifully structured, Bruce Norris' play has parallel first and second acts. In the first act, a husband and wife are packing up after having sold their house to the first African-American family in the neighborhood, or at least on the street. In the second act, 50 years later Clybourne Park is undergoing gentrification and a white couple has just bought the same house.

On the face of it, and to some extent in the promotional literature, the play is about race. It's about what we can discuss, what we will say, what we won't say and how we can't properly communicate with one another about race. The discussion of race in the play actually left me frustrated. And, when we walked out I was frustrated because I felt like the play had not advanced the conversation on race one iota. We all know where we are, in this stale quagmire. Telling us where we are and not helping at all with an exit plan, well - it's just not hopeful. I don't think I've articulated that theater should be more than a mere mirror. It should say something.

But, then an hour later - the play clicked. If you examine it through the lens of the motivations of the two families to break the racial barrier and move into neighborhoods where they would be the minority it all comes alive.

Let's talk about the motivations for the family in the first act. Why would an African-American family want to move into an all white neighborhood? What would motivate them? I'm going to assume it's more expensive than a predominately African-American neighborhood 50 years ago. Let's also assume that if a family has managed to save money, they could have bought a really nice house in a less expensive neighborhood somewhere else. So, the answer: it's about inequity. The white neighborhood has better services, better schools, better this, better that. That would motivate a family to do the hard work of breaking that racial barrier, which is/was no easy thing. It was, still is, hard. But, people want what is best for their kids. They want them in better schools, so they can have better lives. City services are better in more affluent neighborhoods.

I remember a subway ride home late one night from Bed-Stuy. It was about 2 AM. And, the subway didn't connect between stations and we were somehow left stranded, like really stranded. And, I remember thinking, "There is no way the MTA would have routed this way if this train went through Park Slope." It just wouldn't have happened. City services are not equitable. Streets get plowed faster in some neighborhoods. Power gets restored faster. Streets are cleaner. Disruptions are apologized for. Crime is dealt with in some neighborhoods, tolerated in others. The world isn't actually fair, and sometimes you want to move to a place that is better served. Why do we think America has immigration problems? People want more opportunity, cleaner streets, better schools. I almost forgot to mention redlining. That alone would make anyone want to change their address!

So, in the second act, what is the motivation for gentrification? This is key to the play. Gentrification is motivated by different concerns. People aren't looking for a stronger community, more services from outside the home. They are looking for a bigger house, more house than they could afford in a neighborhood where they are in the majority. They want to push their money farther, cheap land, big house. It's about individual want, not taking part in a strong community. In the case in the play, the young couple wants to tear down the house and build the biggest house on the block. They want to be bigger than their neighbors, richer. In a key dialogue within the play, for the white couple it is about property value and for the community which is petitioning the house being bigger - it's about a strong community, community values and maintaining the fairer world they've built.

Children

That hope for the future. Children are significant in the play. The first couple in the play, the sellers of the house, have lost their only son. They are doubly ashamed. He committed war crimes in the Korean War and then came home and committed suicide. Their hope for the future is gone. They don't even have their son's good name to hold on to.

The couple who goes crazy over the sale of the house to an African-American family (a family with school-age children or close to that age, I'm assuming) is about to have a baby. They are nesting. They don't want to see anything change and you find out in the second act that they moved shortly thereafter. White flight.

In the second act, the schools are mentioned as bad by the young, white couple. So, what are their plans? I think they would be thinking either private school or possibly even hoping the schools will be better by the time their unborn child hits school age. Either way, it seems they have what it takes to live in a community without the schools they want and find a way around it.

I found it significant that children made a big difference to the motivations of the characters in the play.

Motivation

Like I said, the play comes alive when you look at the motivations of the two couples. Or, what could still motivate any family to break the racial barriers and move to a place where they are the minority. It was an unfair world. It still is an unfair world. And, the truth is, white people still have a lot of advantages.

Other Themes

We have other themes, which I want to mention briefly.

The theme of war, of a united America going out to confront a foreign enemy, even though this play shows that America isn't really all that united.

We have the theme of the way Americans view the rest of the world. In both acts a lot of time in the play is given to discussing what we call people from other countries, capitals of other countries and then travels to other countries. The conversations display American ignorance of other, Americans trend to know very little of other people, to stay three days in one place and have a final, dismissive opinion of it (I just read this is American in a DH Lawrence essay about Moby Dick - we'll go with it).

We have the theme of community and community values. What constitutes a community? What are community values? What do we want from our communities? What do we want from real estate? Why do we live some places and not others? What are we willing to give up to live in a place? America isn't just one place.

At the end of the day, this play is thought-provoking. And, it's nice when a play is about the play. You don't leave talking about the actors or the sets, but your mind is fully engaged in the play - which mine was. Sorry it just completed its run, because I recommend it. And, you won't be able to see it until it starts playing somewhere else. Which it will.