Dutchman @ The Classics Theatre Project
—Review by Chris Sanders
I am a Black person from New Jersey, reviewing a play written by a Black person from New Jersey about a Black person from New Jersey facing and falling at the hands of White Supremacy. My biases are about to be on full display. So be forewarned. I did not enjoy this particular production of Amiri Baraka’s early play Dutchman at The Classics Theatre Project. And my displeasure with the production actually had less to do with the production itself, and more to do with the atmosphere in which the production took place.
Since it’s clear some negative criticism is coming, I will start with what worked, and give warning for when the tides turn. I enjoyed the designs by Joey Folsom, Devon Rose, and Luisa Torres. I would tell you who designed what, but the program fails to specify, so I will merely discuss what aspects of their work I liked.
The Set: I felt I was back in NYC circa 2010, on one of the old crappy Yellow and Orange Line train cars with the horrible graffiti and puke orange seats, heading to the parts of the boroughs the government doesn’t care about. Tourists only really hang around Manhattan and travel on the Blue and Red lines, and on the L shuttle. So these trains HAVE to have the nice cars with the blue seats and digital map to tell you your stop. It’s a thing. And as bad as the graffiti could be in 2010, it was WORSE in 1964, when Dutchman was written by the playwright then known as LeRoi Jones. The lighting, coloring, and even the exposed pipes evoked many New York Metro stations.
The Sound: The music at the top of the show was a good fit. And throughout the play itself were a series of intermittent subway train sounds, which worked well with the coming and going of the train the action of the play takes place.
The Costumes: I was on the fence at first about the emerald-green satin dress worn by Lula, played by Rhonda Rose. However, after further recalling lessons from my Judeo-Christian upbringing, I realized that Lula’s costume may have been meant to show her as the embodiment of both Eve and the Snake with the apple, jointly seducing Adam to his demise. Adam in this case would be Clay, played by Brentom Jackson. I, much like Republicans circa August 2014, am not the biggest fan of tan suits. However, the color choice worked, given the time period and possibly some wordplay on the character’s name—not only in the earth man was molded from, but in the ways Lula molds Clay to her will throughout the play.
Now…Beware my biases.
The Performances: Again being from New Jersey, particularly from the suburbs 45 minutes outside NYC, Mr. Jackson’s Clay spoke in a too-strong Texan dialect. The rest of his performance was fine, but the twang took me out of the scene at times, especially when the location of the play or Clay’s Jersey residence was mentioned. Aside from the drawl, Mr. Jackson’s overall performance worked for this production. Ms. Rose, as the woman he encounters in the subway, played the ups and downs of Lula well. My sense, however, is that her many shifts in emotions happened in a way that much more often cried “insanity” rather than “emotional manipulation.”
This may have been how the script was interpreted and/or directed. Troublingly, though, this approach gives the Elephant-sized Racism of Lula’s actions an easy out: “Oh the poor girl. She’s insane. That’s why she keeps hunting down, seducing, and torturing these Black men.” Playing up Lula’s “insanity” negates the Historical Racism that leads to the detriment of Black bodies, particularly at the hands (and the accusing tears) of white women and girls—women and girls Lula specifically represents.
This is not to say that Lula represents all white women. This isn’t to say that she represents white women who pursue romantic relationships with Black men. Absolutely not. Lula specifically represents a sector of white women who have led to the wrongful imprisonment (The Scottsboro Boys, The Central Park Five, Anthony Broadwater), individual demise (Allen Brooks in 1910, George Stinney Jr. in 1944, Emmett Till in 1955), or mass murder (The Tulsa Massacre of 1921, the Rosewood Massacre of 1923) of Black people. Lula, and her ability to orchestrate the torture of Clay, is in part the result of propaganda films such as The Birth of a Nation (1915) and The Death of a Nation (1916), which portrayed white women as victims and Black men as predators.
Lula’s actions are specific, calculated, and thoroughly planned; this becomes abundantly clear at the end of the play. And yet, while good, Ms. Rose’s performance plays up the sense that Lula is mentally ill, without showing hints that the mental illness may be wholly or significantly a “design” on the character’s part. In playing up Lula’s insanity more strongly than her calculated callousness, the play loses some of its sharpness. This sense was augmented by the part of my experience that produced the strongest feelings in me….
The Audience: Aside from much-respected director Dennis Raveneau, his wife, and a “plant” for the show, I was the only Black person in the audience. To be the only Black body present, with no association to the show other than to review it, was unnerving to say the least. But nothing was as unnerving as the evidence that this production had lost the sharpness of the playwright’s point: the post-show laughter.
I don’t think I would have had as many issues with the direction the show was taken in, had there not been the same level of laughter both pre- and post-show. Forgive the spoilers, but people were laughing as though they had not just watched a Black man murdered on a public NYC train car by a white woman, had not just watched her toy with him like a cat would a mouse. There was no talk-back to help people process what they had just seen. No mention of thoughts on why Lula would commit such heinous acts…repeatedly. Were they uncomfortable? Did they not care? And after all, what in this particular production would make them care? Nothing seemed to call them to task, or to reflection.
So. Aside from my personal issue with Clay’s dialect, the actors’ performances were successful in terms of this production. Raveneau made strong directing choices in basically every area, other than where my biases find fault. And the predominantly white audience seemed to have had a grand time. I am just unsure if this last part fell within the scope of Amiri Baraka’s intentions for his play.
I lament if this review takes away from the work of dedicated theatre artists, which Raveneau, Jackson, Rose, and the designers clearly are. But I wish I’d had the opportunity to experience this play in a different atmosphere.
WHEN: Through November 26
WHERE: Margo Jones Theatre (Fair Park), Dallas
WEB: theclassicstheatreproject.com
