Comments on CRT production of Fairview

 

Fairview by Jackie Sibblies Drury is the 2019 winner of the Pulitizer Prize for drama.  It is a play that starts out like “The Jeffersons” and then morphs into a page from “Marat-Sade.” To be more specific we begin with a black family preparing a birthday dinner for Mama. The mood is light, music is playing, dancing is going on.  Then the lights go zap and the young daughter of the family steps out of the scene and addresses the audience with some serious concerns.  As all of the preceding action begins to move backward in time, two white folks appear at the picture window that dominates the back of the set. They peer in and as they watch they begin a dialogue about race and privilege. Their observations become more intrusive as they literally move in and out of the house through sliding cubby doors covered by pictures. Throughout the remainder of the show the judgements get harsher, the stereotypes bolder, the volume louder, and the string of four-letter words more frequent.  To go beyond this is to become a spoiler for the emotionally charged ending that comes right out of the 1970’s and 80’s when “make the audience feel attacked” was the avant-garde finish of choice.    

Fairview is a wonderfully rich title.  It might just be a nice name for a middle-class suburb for whites and upwardly mobile blacks.  But is it “fair” for whites to continue to watch, pressure, and judge African Americans over the long haul of history? What has been the cost and for whom and to whom? Keisha, the young daughter, clearly wants more than she can get from her bizarre family. She feels suffocated in her current environment and pleads in her final monologue, “Will I ever be free?” This put me thinking about other famous dramatic exits and how long they continue to echo or be re-interpreted. I find myself now somewhere between the slamming of the door in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and the end of Waiting for Godot when once again the long-awaited savior does not appear.   

Mr. Boseman, the director, has a long list of credits and I can only wonder why he keeps his actors looking to the front so much when he is operating in this tiny three-quarter round space.  His positioning left audience members in the far corners not able to see the face of or hear some critical lines from both Keisha and Suze. The costumes were delightful, but you’ll have to see the show to find out why the prop department had the toughest role.