Review: Race at Dirt Dogs Theatre

All David Mamet plays are a symphony of quippy dialogue and playful profanity. Plays like

American Buffalo (1975) and Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) established Mamet’s style: how a writer acutely aware of how language — spoken or unspoken — can reveal the true intentions and underlying beliefs of his characters.

Few would describe those characters as likable or relatable, but many could walk away from those plays knowing exactly who the characters were and the world that created them.

Unfortunately, Mamet’s later works lack this attention to character that made his earlier works stand out. Instead, Mamet’s previous acumen for dynamic characters gives way to a predilection for ideological arguments about race, gender, and politics. Say goodbye to character and welcome to debate. Say goodbye to drama and say hello to talking points.

In Race (2009), a privileged white man claims he’s been falsely accused of raping a black woman. Cue the Left and the Right. No facts required.

Dirt Dogs Theatre Co.’s Artistic Director, Malinda L. Beckham injects enough dramatic tension into the production to make up for a script that lacks conflict and credibility. And despite the plot misfires, the actors deliver engaging performances that almost surmount the material they're given.

Susan (Ashlyn Evans) is a smart and competent new attorney at the law firm yet makes mistakes that only seem plausible if they were done by a doe-eyed receptionist straight out of high school.

Charles Strickland (Aaron Alford) is a wealthy and privileged man who is buffoonishly naive. Toward the end of the play, he errs in such a bewildering way that it’s highly improbable it was done on accident. Yet, I am to believe it was.

Jack Lawson (Jay Sullivan) is a pragmatic attorney who resents racial preference laws and makes sweeping generalizations about White-Black racial relations yet his law partner is a black man, Henry Brown (Andraes Hunt). It’s difficult to believe that he carries such vague prejudices when his main co-worker is a black man. How can Lawson opine with such cocksureness about black people when his co-worker doesn’t reflect what he says?

Give up on the play making sense. Characters behave and do things simply so that discussions about race and who can talk about race can take place. The answer is always white people can’t talk about race, yet for some reason, both white characters talk plenty about race and share loudly what presumptions they’ve made about people such as Jews and African Americans.

Race fails to provide any unique insights. If it does, it’s hidden by an improbable plot and a purposefully inflammatory premise that presupposes controversy without providing evidence.

To believe that a wealthy white man would face such an insurmountable opposition in the legal system just because he is white and the accuser is black seems like a tall order. Do class, gender and racial biases no longer exist?

Again, director Beckham is able to save some of this with deft direction. Having the audience on opposite sides of the stage highlights the black and white position of how arguments on race can be expressed.

It, also, makes the conversations that take place on stage feel more like listening in on private thoughts. This production works fiercely to keep the audience engaged in what the story of this play is.

Very few facts of what actually did occur between the accused and the accuser are revealed. Despite the accused being on stage, the script never tells what happened that night in the hotel room. Instead, affidavits from eyewitnesses are peppered throughout the story as the truth of what may have happened changes with each new account.

In critical moments where a new source of information is revealed, swelling and sustained chords (sound design by Trevor B. Cone) or the lights would shift colors (lighting by John Baker) to punctuate the importance. These design cues provide intrigue because they call attention to the fact that this play does have the ability to captivate as a mystery or thriller when the characters aren’t parroting ordinary observations of race in America.

The tight blocking and movement of characters visually express the power dynamics between characters where a detail as small as which character sits and which one stands becomes a source of interest.

The acting fires on all cylinders. Sullivan, once warmed up, plays the shrewd and morally ambiguous attorney who delivers the most clinical and impersonal observations about race, yet it’s clear that race is a matter he takes very personally.

Sullivan projects an overwhelming confidence of how race works when he’s confronted toward the end by his new hire that all the contradictions, hypocrisies and absurdity of his behavior comes to the surface. His body caves in like he knows he’s wrong, yet this character is one who can never admit his faults.

The way Sullivan conveys his guilt without confessing to any shame is thrilling to watch. His performance is engaging, and he complements all the other actors on stage.

While both Sullivan and Hunt play cynical and jaded lawyers, Hunt is more measured in his estimations of how the legal system works and the role race plays in this case. Whereas Sullivan waxes on about race with broad strokes, Hunt has more precise observations due to the fact he is a Black man.

His personal beliefs about race diverge from his professional responsibilities to defend his client as innocent and Hunt navigates those tensions without any strain.

Alford peppers his performance with the right amount of indifference for someone who has enough money to buy himself out of any conflict yet also with a certain level of naivety that volleys between being sincere or manipulative.

There’s a moment toward the end where Alford’s voice (body positioned away due to the stage setup) feels so earnest and apologetic that maybe one starts to believe that he is innocent after all. His remorse is palpable, yet was it real?

Race continues through Nov 2 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m Fridays, Saturdays, 2  p.m Sundays, and 7:30 p.m Monday, October 28, Industry Night at Dirt Dogs Theatre Co., at MATCH, 3400 Main. For more information, call 713-521-4533 or visit dirtdogstheatre.org. $30.