Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Jeremy O. Harris’s suffocating and disturbed SLAVE PLAY is a rabbit hole from which there is no easy way out

• By drediman
• December 11, 2018
• No Comments

Teyonah Parris and Paul Alexander Nolan in Jeremy O. Harris’s “Slave Play” at New York Theatre Workshop. Photo by Joan Marcus.

This past weekend, Jeremy O. Harris’s new play Slave Play opened Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop. The play tells the story of three interracial couples who try to work out troubles in the bedroom by attending a self-help program which advocates playing out antebellum slave/owner sexual fantasies to solve their sexual dilemmas (!).

What the play examines so theatrically is the nature of sexuality vis-à-vis race and objectification. Sexual arousal is a tricky matter, in and of itself. Who we are physically attracted to and attaining sexual fulfillment are largely mysterious phenomena, especially when compounded with the equally quirky element of race relations. That the play so provocatively and disturbingly acknowledges these knotted forces is for me half of its appeal.

Director Robert O’Hara – who himself is no slouch as a playwright (who can forget his zany, biting Bootycandy?) – has given Mr. Harris’s play a fearless and outrageous sense of theatricality which seems just right for it. Set largely on a bare stage with a looming mirror facing the audience as a backdrop, Mr. O’Hara’s untethered and suffocating staging leaves no one unscathed, and that includes the audience. Although he can’t quite help the play’s sagging, whiny middle section, Slave Play is bookended with two scenes of such disturbing audacity, that it’s easy to overlook the play’s slight unevenness. His cast is excellent, particularly Teyonah Parris and Paul Alexander Nolan, who display terrific raw intensity as the piece’s central role playing (or are they?) couple.

RECOMMENDED

SLAVE PLAY
Off-Broadway, Play
New York Theatre Workshop
2 hours (without an intermission)
Through January 13