by Michele Markarian
The White Card. Written by Claudia Rankine. Directed by Diane Paulus. The World Premiere of American Repertory Theater’s production, presented by ArtsEmerson , 559 Washington Street, Boston, MA through April 1.
Wealthy New Yorkers and avid art collectors Virginia and Charles (Patricia Kalember and Daniel Gerroll) have, through their colleague Eric (Jim Poulos), invited artist Charlotte (Karen Pittman), to dinner, in the hopes of purchasing some of her work for their illustrious collection. Charlotte, who is the only black person at the dinner, is making a name for herself creating photographic re-enactments of racist crimes. Charles and Virginia, well-intentioned white people, collect art on this very subject, thinking it the essence of the black experience.
Yet Virginia can’t pronounce Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Charles’s company oversees the building of for-profit prisons across America. Their son, Alex (Colton Ryan) is an activist, working with Black Lives Matter, despite the fact that his initial presence there rattles its black members (“We need allies, not masters” one of them says to him, much to his clueless mother’s consternation).
And what was supposed to be a lovely dinner party devolves into a screaming match, as it is revealed that Charles not only builds prisons, but his son Tim, a former trader-cum-junkie, is housed in one of them. After Charles unveils his latest purchase, a photo of a police drawing depicting the bullets in Ferguson police shooting victim Michael Brown (even though the outline is of a white male) Charlotte decides to place her latest work elsewhere, with a museum.
The whole evening gets Charlotte thinking about black people as victims, which changes the way she approaches her art. Charles discovers this a year later when Charlotte agrees to meet him in her studio. Charlotte confronts Charles about his own views, comparing them to a racist policeman’s – “His obsession with black people as criminals and yours of black people as victims are cut from the same cloth”, she tells him, before revealing that her latest photographic subject is a well-heeled, middle-aged white male. This initially does not sit well with Charles at all, who in his anger physically attacks Charlotte (WHY doesn’t she throw him out?) but in the end, all is forgiven.
The cast is uniformly terrific. The big problem I have with the play is that the underdeveloped characters seem to be mouthpieces for some provocative and timely challenges, but not much else. All five of them come from privilege, although Charlotte’s privilege can’t protect her from the vulnerability of her race. There’s nothing truly personal in their exchanges, it’s all rhetoric. None of them are particularly likeable. Real drama, at least for me, needs to be visceral, which is why every single one of you reading this review needs to stick around for Act Two, which is when things get really interesting.
Act Two is moderated by two facilitators, who instruct the audience members to form groups of three or four, the stipulation being is that it can’t be with people that you know or came with. This is a chance for each of us to be a stranger in a figurative dinner party, engaging in conversation with one another. It’s risky and I liked it. It also explains why the house lights are up on Riccardo Hernandez’s brilliantly all white set, which bisects the theater so that two sides of the audience face each other, for the entire show. As witnesses to the conversation, we can see one another, gauge one another’s reactions.
Each group was given two questions to discuss – I won’t tell you what they were, because it needs to be fresh for you. But the questions do pertain to the material, and what’s interesting is that everybody brings their own perspective to the discussion. “I looked at the audience and wondered how many Charleses were out there,” revealed one black audience member. As for me, well, I come from a fallen nation that tends to focus on its victimhood, and it bugs me to no end, its constant reminder of tragedy. But although I revealed it to my group, I didn’t reveal it to the audience, as I felt that the discussion wasn’t supposed to be about me. Maybe that’s the beauty of Act Two, the wildcard, the art that unfolds in surprising ways. For more information and tickets, go to:
