Review of Clybourne Park, 

Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

 Jan. 25 to Feb. 16, 2014

By GRAHAM HICKS

Much has been made of the racism aspect of Clybourne Park, the much awarded drama that has made its way to the Citadel's Shoctor Stage and plays through February 16, 2014.

Almost too much ... Because for all the discussion around the play, basically concluding that not much has changed in the 50 years between acts, Clybourne Park actually suggests much has changed. In the first act, the neighbourhood association is all white fighting to keep black folks out of the Chicago neighbourhood. In act two, set 50 years later in the same house, the neighbourhood association is represented by two black activisits, fighting to keep incoming white neighbours from tearing down old houses and "gentifying' Clybourne Park.

There's so much more to this show than an overly-trod-upon racism theme: There's the unusualness of the playwright placing the first act in 1959, the second act in the same house 50 years later;  The fun and challenge to each of the actors to play the very opposite of characters from the first and second acts, in the space of a two-hour show. In Act 1, they must take upon themselves the cultural nuances and affectations of 1959, in Act II become the oh-so-brash, confessional-as-pulpit  American cultural stereotypes of 2009. The last show that was this much fun in leaping generations after the intermission would have been Cheryl Churchill's Cloud Nine. 

There's deep psychological/cultural insight here: Playwright Bruce Norris'  emotional study of the 1959 couple Dan and Bev (Doug Mertz and Kerry Sandomirsky), each reacting in very different sex-stereotyping ways to a personal tragedy that precipitates the social context of "block busting" by selling their home in an all-white neighbourhood to the first blacks on the block. The tragedy itself is as central to the building of the characters' personalities and actions than the more apparent racism. And the tragedy, at play's end, will send shivers down your spine.

While each act is cloaked in the habits and social behaviours of its era, there's a universality of emotional process that Norris carefully crafts.  Sure the '50s might be more polite, more formal, more Miss and Mr, more 'yes ma'am'.  But as each act unfolds, the underlying emotional rawness is exposed and confrontation American-style ensues.

To me, this show was much about "being" American. Perhaps it was director James MacDonald's intent, for it left me, once again, rather proud of my polite Canadianisms compared to the shrill, confrontational, somewhat childish churlishness of Norris' characters. Indeed, a few of them were guilty of being causes or political stereotypes rather than characters with human qualities.  Which, I'd expect, was a deliberate observation of the playwright's part of his own culture. They all, especially in the second half, rapid-fire talk at each other without listening - an American trait if ever there was one! 

Clybourne Park is complex ... as much as any over-the-top American show can be complex ... and part of the complexity's fun was enjoying the acting chops that saw the actors play such different characters in the second half.

Kerry Sandomirsky put on an acting workshop,  from the hyper-fragile, neurotic and repressed mother of the first act to an over-the-top, very funny bull-in-a-china shop lawyer. Martin Happer was double-dutied as the passionate racist-in-the-context-of-his-times in the first act, to the slightly wacky, attention-deficit, mile-a-minute husband of the second.  Edmonton actor (and director of the Citadel's youth programs) Doug Mertz had his first big role in a Citadel show, demonstrating excellent acting chops in his portrayal of the deeply hurt father Russ in the first act, then the over-the-top workman in the second. More Mertz in shows to come, please!

Kudos to director MacDonald for casting his acting net wide, bringing in a group of excellent actors with little or no previous Citadel experience. They jelled beautifully. All deserve to be included in the Citadel "family."

Yes, Clybourne Park is, on the surface, a story about long-standing race relations in America. But it's also much, much more.