Forest Roberts Theatre debuted their production of “Clybourne Park” on Nov. 2 and will be performing shows in the Panowski Black Box Theatre the first and second weeks of November.
“Clybourne Park”, written by Bruce Norris, is a two-act play that received a Pulitzer Prize in 2011 for drama and a Tony award in 2012 for best play. The first act starts off where Lorraine Hansberry’s play “A Raisin in the Sun” ended, in 1959 Chicago with the attempted segregation of a black family from a white neighborhood.
In the second act, a white family buys a home in “Clybourne Park”, starting the gentrification process by planning to tear down the old house and build a new mansion in what has been a black neighborhood for 50 years. Forest Roberts Theatre Director Paul Truckey said that this production will be updated by 70 years, to our time.
Truckey encourages attendees to come with an open mind.
“There [are] tons of themes and motifs and subjects that get hit on [in] this play, not just the one that everybody knows about, which is the racial economic disaggregation of areas,” Truckey said. “The playwright throws the kitchen sink at this play. He talks about everything in the world.”
The house is the biggest character in the play, Truckey said. Between the first and second act, the house will change in appearance as things fall apart and the house becomes dilapidated, allowing the white family to buy it at a low price.
Truckey wanted to direct the play in previous years, but for one reason or another, it fell through. When it came time to select plays for the upcoming year, Forest Roberts Theatre decided it was time, as they had the right group of students to handle the play.
The last three performances will be Nov. 9 – 11 at 7:30 p.m. and tickets can be bought online at NMU Ticketing. Tickets are $20 for General Public, $15 for NMU Faculty/Staff, Seniors, and Military, $12 for Students, and $5 for NMU Students.
While the play deals with some serious issues and brings the audience to moments full of tension, it is cut with humor. There are plenty of “go for the throat” moments, but every character at one point contradicts themselves.
“There’s nobody that comes out clean,” Truckey said.
