Review: The Play “Race” On Broadway

This past weekend I was honored to have the oppurtunity to see my first Broadway show in quite a while . I attended the late show of the thrilling Play “Race” written and directed by John Mamet starring David Allen Grier, James Spader, Kerry Washington and Richard Thomas.

The play explores the on going struggles that both blacks and whites share regarding race in America. Charles Strickland (Richard Thomas) is a wealthy well to do middle aged white man who has been accused of raping a young black woman and is seeking legal representation. The two Lawyers Jack Lawson (James Spader ) and Henry Brown (David Allen Grier) are skeptical of taking on a rape case of this magnitude but proceed to go over the information provided from the victims statements, the officers first on the scene as well as witness testimony. The young woman claims that the man ripped her “red sequence dress” off in his attempt to have sex with her un-consensual. Strickland  denies any wrong doing and claims it was just an extra marital fling with a young “black” woman that he “may have bought gifts and lent money to” once or twice. As the lawyers go over the case they are met with many loop wholes that could turn the case inside out.

Although at a pinical point in the play Lawson and Brown decide not to take on the case because they feel it will be less about the accusation of rape in the minds of the jury but more about the issue of race, their forced to take on the case because of their paralegal Susan’s (Kerry Washington) inablity to deal with the defendant professionally. Susan’s actions compromised the case by allowing her true feelings regarding Stricklands accounts to out weight her professionalism as a future lawyer. By the end of the play the story takes a turn as new developments prove Strickland as not only a man with past racial issues, but a rapist.

Broadway Channel Preview Of “Race”