Potentially a provocative comedy-drama, Slave Play gradually cools off as its characters keep talking on and on and on.
Premiering on Sunday at New York Theatre Workshop, Slave Play begins with a triptych of sexy riffs on porn scenarios drawn from the very old, very deep South: The sassy slave wench and the randy white overseer. The studly mulatto house servant and the libidinous mistress of the plantation. The white indentured laborer and his abusive black boss.
It slowly becomes evident that these steamy encounters are merely make-believe interludes. The characters’ language is vaguely anachronistic. The wench twerks and the overseer is not handy with a whip. The lusty lady of the house removes her crinolines to reveal thigh-high kinky boots. As they smooch, the laborer and his boss strip down to matching Calvin Klein briefs.
As it turns out, these three interracial couples happen to be modern-day participants in the midst of a so-called “Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy Workshop” that involves fantasy role playing amid the premises of a vintage Southern mansion.
During a group session that follows those trysts, it is revealed that everyone’s relationships suffer from sexual anhedonia—an inability to experience pleasure. A pair of young, gung-ho facilitators who counsel the group believes such dysfunction among interracial relationships is caused by an imperceptible, yet malignant, strain of racism that lingers from centuries of white oppression.
This psychosexual theory is explicated as the drama proceeds, even as details concerning the couples’ particular difficulties with intimacy are divulged. Ultimately, the partners achieve breakthroughs of varying degrees of satisfaction. A rough sexual encounter that ends the play is graphically depicted.
Already the recipient of several playwriting awards, Slave Play marks the metropolitan debut of writer Jeremy O. Harris, currently in his second year at the Yale School of Drama. His “Daddy” will premiere this spring in a coproduction by the Vineyard Theatre and The New Group.
Although Slave Play studies an intriguing thesis, its development disappoints.
The middle part of the piece, during which the couples uneasily discuss their issues as a group, is sporadically amusing both as a satire of encounter sessions and through the comicality inherent to several individuals. Unfortunately, such humor dissipates with the passage of time as everybody keeps yakking away. The product of a young, talented writer who obviously is in love with every word he commits to paper, Slave Play (which runs two hours without an intermission) is at least 30 minutes too long.
Even with the play’s excessive length, its mumbo jumbo regarding sexual dysfunction and racism is never effectively dramatized, and characters are only sketchily realized. Still, Harris delivers some juicy dialogue, cultivates interesting relationships, and offers a few thoughtful insights regarding perceptions of color and heritage among black people.
Robert O’Hara, the notable playwright who directs the production, paces snatches of the dialogue so rapidly that their meaning evaporates into gabble. He manages to navigate the play’s shifts in tone, however, and fosters several especially convincing performances.
Irene Sofia Lucio and Chalia La Tour are subtly funny as the chipper, rather inept, group facilitators. Typically seen as a leading man in musicals like Escape to Margaritaville, Paul Alexander Nolan provides a layered portrait of a man frustrated by his inability to comprehend his wife’s needs. Lending visual eloquence to the mostly silent role of Nolan’s spouse, Teyonah Parris finally and believably vents her character’s simmering rage.
O’Hara does not direct his designers as profitably as the actors. Dede Ayite crafts those 19th-century period garments too authentically for the story’s 21st-century circumstances. Jiyoun Chang’s changes in lighting intensities are not subtle. The homely setting, which is designed by the eminent Clint Ramos, is topped by several cut-out words extracted from Rihanna’s “Work” lyric (nuh body touch me you nuh righteous) and mostly consists of a large wall of mirrored panels.
Seeing themselves in the reflection, are spectators meant to consider the racial diversity of the audience? Or possibly to think of their sexual issues in the context of the drama?
Finally, one wonders about Harris’ choice of Slave Play as a title. Sure, it’s kinda sensational but is it accurate? These characters are slaves to the history of white supremacy? Slaves to their own desire? Slaves to destination psychotherapy? Playing slaves for kicks? Or what?
It is to this promising writer’s credit that one ponders the quandaries lurking within his play even when its dramaturgy and staging remain far from satisfying.
Slave Play opened December 9, 2018, at New York Theatre Workshop and runs through January 13. Tickets and information: nytw.org
