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<p class="MsoNormal">CLYBOURNE PARK…a fascinating view of neighborhood
integration and gentrification</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Have you ever wondered, after seeing a play, what might have
happened to the characters or even the physical structure in which the story is
set, before the play began or after it ended?<span style> </span>Bruce Norris’s CLYBOURNE PARK does exactly that.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Flash back to 1959, where, at the conclusion of Lorraine
Hansberry’s A RAISIN THE SUN, the black Younger family is about to move into
the all-white Clyborune Park area of Chicago. <span style> </span>Before the move, fearing the lowering of housing costs
and white flight, the neighbors sent Karl Lindner, a bigoted community leader,
to offer the Youngers money for not finalizing the deal.<span style> </span>As it turned out, Lena, the matriarch
of the family, refused the offer and the Youngers moved to a house numbered 406.
<span style> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(Side note:<span style> </span>the
story parallels the plight of Hansberry’s family.<span style> </span>In 1937, her father bought a home in Chicago’s segregated
Washington Park area.<span style> </span>The restricted
covenants were challenged, resulting in a legal case (Hansberry v. Lee, 311
U.S. 32).<span style> </span>The Hansberrys won, moved
in and the house now has National Landmark Preservation status.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(Enter Norris)<span style> </span><span style> </span>CLYBOURNE PARK takes us into 406,
several days before the Youngers were to move in.<span style> </span>Bev and Russ, the owners of the property, are grief stricken.<span style> </span>Their son, Kenneth, who was accused of
war crimes in the Korea, had committed suicide in his bedroom.<span style> </span>The family, which has been ostracized,
decided to sell the house. <span style> </span>We are
never sure whether they sold to a black family to get back at their neighbors,
or, as they state, were “unaware of the race of the new owners.”<span style> </span>Lindner, the character from
RAISIN, comes to plead with Bev and Russ to withdraw from the deal.<span style> </span>After an emotional confrontation in
front of a group of neighbors, the sellers refuse.<span style> </span>(Exit Norris.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(Re-enter Norris).<span style> </span>The second act of CLYBOURNE PARK takes place in 2009.<span style> </span>The same actors as in Act 1,
playing different characters, are present.<span style> </span>There is conflict as to whether the house, in what is now
becoming a gentrified community, will be sold, leveled and a new structure built
by a white family.<span style> </span>African
American Lena and her husband represent the local neighborhood association, and
mention that her Great-Aunt moved her family to that house in 1959.<span style> </span>(It is probably not by chance that the
young lady has the same name as her Great-Aunt.) Racism enters as the blacks,
who have rebuilt the neighborhood, don’t want white suburbanites to buy and
change the character of the houses, many of which have been rebuilt to mirror
their historical past.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Does the viewer have to know all of the intertwining stories
in order to appreciate the Norris play?<span style>
</span>No, but it does add a psychological jolt to realize that we are watching
the blending the ideas of two great playwrights. <span style> </span>It is also eye-opening to realize that Hansberry, whose
RAISIN IN THE SUN is considered the seminal black civil rights play, did not
win a Pulitzer Prize for her script, but Norris did for his.<a name="_GoBack"></a><span style> </span>One can only wonder if gender and race,
subjects of both scripts, was a factor in Hansberry’s denial decision.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The play, under the adept direction of Pam MacKinnon, is
spell binding.<span style> </span>The pacing is
excellent, the characters clearly developed, the settings are era correct and
work well to convey the passage of time and neighborhood change.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Norris, an actor as well as a playwright, writes characters
that live.<span style> </span>This is a unified cast
production, in which each participant carries equal weight for the success of
the production.<span style> </span>Fortunately, the
cast, Crystal Dickinson, Brendan Griffin, Damon Gupton, Christina Kirk, Annie
Parisse, Jeremy Shamos and Frank Wood each effectively textures his/her dual
roles.<span style> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i style>Capsule
Judgement:<span style> </span>Pulitzer Prize winning
CLAYBOURNE PARK is an emotionally moving script that effectively highlights the
still present distrust between members of different races.<span style> </span>It gets an impressive production under
Pam MacKinnon’s direction.<span style> </span>It’s a
significant play worth seeing.</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(The on-Broadway production opened April 26, 2012 in the
Walter Kerr Theatre for a 16-week limited engagement. )</p>