By: Sandi Durell
The bottom line is if you don’t think you are a racist, you are one! At least, in this uniquely remounted piercingly dark comedy at Urban Stages, written by Greg Kalleres, there is a cure!
When marketing moguls manipulate the minds of black teens so that a pair of “Sky Max” basketball sneakers are the rage, and a ghetto teen is murdered for them, that’s the signal for CEO Davis (Philip Callen), an ad executive, to realize he can now push those same sneakers on the white kids who want to emulate what the ghetto kids are wearing. His racial sensitivity is O!
Sure it sounds a little convoluted but so is advertising, marketing and the media – and so is this play. It’s filled with racial references geared to make you take a sharp look at yourself and race relations and – a lot of potty mouths.
Both Thomas (Anthony Gaskins), who is black, feels responsible as the designer of the sneakers as does Peter (Dave Droxler) who put together the commercial.
So we’re rolling in guilt, black and white alike.
Peter is also engaged to Andie (Danielle Faitelson), one of those gals, who can’t stop the flow of what’s on her brain is on her tongue, not realizing how each pearl that drops is filled with racial innuendo. She’s all tied up with wedding plans while Peter is feeling guilty – about everything – worldwide! They bicker, he accusing her of being too white; she saying that because he went to a public high school doesn’t make him Nelson Mandella.
So he goes to see a black psychiatrist, Emilia (Arie Bianca Thompson) who just wants to see her patients as just people who need help. But every other word Peter drops has racial overtones. Oh my, what’s a person to do?
Enter Dr. Driscoll (Scott Barrow)! He’s invented Driscotol – yup, the pill that will cure righteous indignation and rid all of racism.
Meantime, we see two black kids (DeLance Minefee and Reynaldo Piniella) on a subway in different circumstances – accosting Davis, then Peter and Thomas; and. . . Andie is having an affair with Thomas.
There’s a lot going on in this 90 minutes – what’s appropriate and how do we function without being offensive – and it all comes down to a lot of laughs as we take a good hard look at the world and ourselves in this cheeky comedy.
Director Luke Harlan keeps the pace flowing with this talented cast. If you didn’t have a chance to see Honky last season, now’s the time thru November 17th.
UrbanStages.org 259 West 30th Street, NYC
212 868-4444
*Photos Ben Hider
