{"id":91509,"date":"2019-06-18T12:25:35","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T16:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/at-first-i-didnt-think-fairview-was-for-me-review\/"},"modified":"2019-06-18T12:25:35","modified_gmt":"2019-06-18T16:25:35","slug":"at-first-i-didnt-think-fairview-was-for-me-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/at-first-i-didnt-think-fairview-was-for-me-review\/","title":{"rendered":"At First I Didn\u2019t Think \u2018Fairview\u2019 Was for Me: REVIEW"},"content":{"rendered":"

At First I Didn\u2019t Think \u2018Fairview\u2019 Was for Me: REVIEW<\/b><\/p>\n

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It\u2019s hard to talk about Fairview<\/em>. Not just because the play has already caused a sensation, unleashing a flood of critical acclaim when it opened at Soho Rep last year<\/a> and winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Nor simply because revealing its ingenious structure feels like a kind of sin, so holy do its effects on the unsuspecting feel to me. It\u2019s difficult because the play is shattering in a literal sense; anyone\u2019s response to Fairview<\/em> reveals something previously fathomless, like lifting a rock from damp ground and being forced to face whatever lies underneath. <\/p>\n

In that spirit, I first saw the play last summer, after its rapturous reviews (from mostly white critics which I hadn\u2019t yet read) and before its encore production, currently running at Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn through July 28. I knew it was a knockout play about race that had sold out once word got around. (I had somehow managed a single ticket.) Walking to my seat, at least one thing about the experience felt wholly unsurprising: I was one among a small fraction of non-white faces in the audience. <\/p>\n

Though I\u2019m quite used to that, already I felt unnerved. If this was supposedly one of the most astonishing plays about race in years, who exactly was it meant for? <\/p>\n

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The first act signaled an answer in the form of an upper-middle class Black family, polished and sitcom-ready. (The play runs 110 minutes with no intermission, but is broken into three distinct parts.) Think Fresh Prince of Bel-Air<\/em> meets Family Matters <\/em>\u2014 they have plenty of means, and display social class and family values, too. A smartly dressed woman<\/a> (Heather Alicia Sims) is peeling carrots, prepping for her unseen mother\u2019s birthday dinner. Her husband (Charles Browning) catches her dancing to the stereo (Sly and the Family Stone, \u201cIt\u2019s a Family Affair\u201d) and slides up from behind to join her.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t just sneak up on people,\u201d she protests with a sweet but genuine annoyance. \u201cYou don\u2019t just watch a person, and they don\u2019t know you\u2019re there.\u201d Subtle nods like this and the encasing frame around director Sarah Benson\u2019s production (scenic design is by Mimi Lien) indicate a broader awareness of who is watching and who is being watched. A performance of high respectability radiates from the family, which comes to include a vivacious and accomplished teenage<\/a> daughter (Mayaa Boateng) and an edgy, instigating aunt (Roslyn Ruff). <\/p>\n

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Given the makeup of the audience, I could guess who this performance of excellence was meant to appease. We\u2019ve all seen it before: the veneer glinting from stories about racial minorities crafted for white consumption. Maybe I\u2019m being paranoid<\/em>, I thought. They seem like a real, loving family.<\/em> I nearly reached the point of gaslighting myself. Relax. You\u2019re always so sensitive. Not everything is About Race. Except, I thought this was? Hopefully more people of color will at least get to read about this play even if they can\u2019t get a ticket.<\/em><\/p>\n

These were the thoughts swimming in my head when I first experienced Fairview<\/em>\u2019s sharp turn. The voices of white spectators, whom I\u2019d imagined this performance was directed toward, begin echoing through the dark, as the action of the previous scene replays silently in real time. They speak callously, foolishly, with the kind of myopia and privilege that many minorities \u2014 especially Black people \u2014 have been accustomed to hearing and ignoring or accommodating and educating for as long as any of us have been able to understand words.<\/p>\n

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I started sweating and my lungs felt shallow. I always kind of want to scream out in dark theatres, just to break the social contract, but this time I actually almost do. The voices crack jokes, argue inanely, ignorantly. The dialogue feels endless and careens off the rails, a man<\/a> babbling with rage as the characters on stage continue their pantomime. I started to cry, quietly. I\u2019ve never felt more alone while surrounded by people on every side, and not because I had come to the show by myself. Others in the audience were laughing, or still sitting quietly, exactly as they were meant to be doing. Why didn\u2019t anyone else seem upset? <\/p>\n

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I was back to doubting my own response when I realized I had been lit like a fuse from the outset. The play\u2019s scorching final act, which I won\u2019t detail here, reversed my isolation to such an extreme that I felt more exposed than if I had, in fact, succumbed to a primal scream. I later understood why I had so much trouble keeping still and quiet \u2014 this isn\u2019t just about a handful of made-up characters on stage, entertaining an audience one minute and forgotten the next. The question of whose stories stories get told, and for whose benefit and by whose rules, aren\u2019t just about plays or fiction, but history and identity. <\/p>\n

After the actors bowed, I rushed out to the street for air, breathing slow and deep. When I returned to the show this year, I brought a friend \u2014 and the foresight that Fairview<\/em> would be watching us, too.<\/p>\n

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Follow Naveen Kumar on Twitter: @Mr_NaveenKumar<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

photos by gerry goodstein <\/p>\n

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The post At First I Didn\u2019t Think \u2018Fairview\u2019 Was for Me: REVIEW<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad Gay News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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At First I Didn\u2019t Think \u2018Fairview\u2019 Was for Me: REVIEW<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n