Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – WHITE NOISE: Suzan-Lori Parks as ambitious and provocative, as ever

• By drediman
• March 21, 2019
• No Comments

Daveed Diggs and Zoe Winters in Suzan-Lori Parks’ “White Noise” at the Public Theater. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Last night, Suzan-Lori Parks’ highly anticipated new play White Noise opened Off-Broadway at the Public Theater’s Anspacher Theater. At its heart, the play tells the story of Leo (played by Daveed Diggs, a Tony-winner for a small show uptown called Hamilton), a young, restless African American artist who, without reasonable cause, experiences police brutality firsthand. The traumatic event triggers in him the need to take drastic action (to say the least; no spoilers here), disrupting the dynamics within his tight knit group of friends in profound, deeply unsettling ways.

Ms. Parks is one of our most adventurous and successful playwrights – she won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Topdog/Underdog, which also premiered at the Public nearly two decades ago now. Few of her peers can wield symbolism as theatrically and viscerally as Ms. Parks can and does. Plays such as the aforementioned Topdog/Underdog, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2, and 3), and her “Red Letter Plays” are close to unparalleled in their daring theatrical landscapes (Ms. Parks is likely our equivalent of Britain’s great Caryl Churchill), as well as searing and epic tragic dimensions. But what’s atypical for this playwright about White Noise is that it starts out rooted in relative realism. It’s only as the play unfolds that Ms. Parks eventually weaves in the inevitability and heightened urgency associated with the larger canvas of Greek tragedy. The combination makes her latest effort particularly potent theater.

Oskar Eustis, the Public’s enthusiastic artistic director, has guided the work with unnerving lucidity, bringing Ms. Parks’ provocative ideas to the fore with care and stinging evenhandedness. Leo’s three close, lifelong friends are played by Thomas Sadoski, Zoe Winters, and Sheria Irving – who produce excellent performances. Each are given their own meaty, masterful monologue to perform at some point during the course of the production’s three hour running time, which they bite into with shocking transparency. As Leo, Daveed Diggs is just about ideal as the play’s troubled nexus, giving a slow-burning, wonderfully-calibrated performance that’s at once resigned and defiant. Even if White Noise could use perhaps a little trimming, I’m still mulling over its audacity and many nuances.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

WHITE NOISE
Off-Broadway, Play
The Public Theater
3 hours (with one intermission)
Through March 20