THEATER REVIEW: Mary
THEATER REVIEW: MaryMary
Written by Thomas Bradshaw
Directed by May Adrales
Presented by The Goodman Theatre *
Written by Thomas Bradshaw
Directed by May Adrales
Presented by The Goodman Theatre *
If the last sentence in the Author's Note above, offended you in anyway, stop reading now and don't even think about going to see Mary at The Goodman Theatre. You probably give words more power than I do and my swearing and the use of the word nigger in Mary may be too much for you. Seriously, don't fucking do this to yourself. Go back to saving the world via Facebook status updates and everything will be OK.
Everybody else, follow me.
Everybody else, follow me.
First of all, I think its important to note that I am not a trained theatre critic. I have only my experiences in life and in the processes I have been a part of to inform my opinions about the show. The closest I ever come to writing reviews of shows is when I g-chat or email with friends about a show of I saw.
Second of all, SPOILER ALERT. If you plan on seeing this play, and you don't want to know what happens, stop reading and come back after you have. In order to address why I love this play so much, I am going to have to give the ending away. You've been warned.
Second of all, SPOILER ALERT. If you plan on seeing this play, and you don't want to know what happens, stop reading and come back after you have. In order to address why I love this play so much, I am going to have to give the ending away. You've been warned.
Third of all, and most important, in the interest of full disclosure I should point out that I am biased as fuck. I have worked at The Goodman on 2 Latino Fests and as a stage hand for a couple of other productions. In that time, I have made friends there. Friends that have worked on this production. You'll have to believe that my respect for those people allows me to be as critical as possible about the shows I see there. (Actually, that practice is the same for any show I see that a friend has worked on. I trust and expect them to be honest with me about my work, so I am honest with them about theirs.)
All of that said, it is my biased, non-trained critic, opinion that you go see this fucking amazing show. You can buy your tickets by clicking on this sentence.
The actual narrative of Mary is centered around Christmas Break in 1983 at the home of James and Delores, an upper class family living in Southern Maryland. Their son David, a closeted homosexual, has invited his boyfriend Jonathan to spend sometime with him and his family during the break. It is during this visit that Jonathan meets the family servant, Nigger Mary. Through Jonathan, David realizes that he has a big problem with his family's treatment of Nigger Mary and Nigger Mary realizes that she has a big problem with David's sexual lifestyle. Thanks to David's realization, Nigger Mary is given the option of learning to read. She takes it and eventually graduates college. Thanks to Nigger Mary's realization, Jonathan gets shot with a BB gun in the balls by Nigger Mary's husband, Elroy. All of these events lead up to Nigger Mary's graduation speech at the end of the play, where in Nigger Mary address the audience directly.
Much of the controversy around this play if focused on the use of the word nigger. And frankly, in this case, getting pissed off about that, in this show, makes no fucking sense to me. If you get stuck on that word, you're going to miss the whole point.
This is not a play about racism.
This is a play about religion, homosexuality, and American Hypocrisy.
Racism and the word nigger are but a setup. They are used merely to illustrate the point that we as a society recognize that there are words we know we ought not use and that we recognize that there are ways people ought not to be treated. We know that it is objectionable to call some one Nigger Anything. We know that slavery was bad and that its effects still affect our society to this day. These points though, are clearly addressed, and justified in Mary, though.
Nigger Mary is questioned by David, at one point, about how she feels when she is called Nigger Mary and about whether or not she feels like she is being treated like a slave. Nigger Mary answers these questions on two occasions during the play. Once to David, in the presence of his mother, Nigger Mary's boss, Delores and once hours later to her husband, Elroy, in her own cabin. It is during these interactions that playwright Bradshaw, in my opinion, justify's his use of the word nigger and makes his comments about the African American community as he sees it today, making it a non issue.
Ok, so if we've address the Nigger Mary part, and the racial issues brought up by the play, we then examine what is left. Sex, Homosexuality, and Religion are all addressed culminating in one of the greatest satirical monologues I've ever witnessed at the end of a show.
Sex is a huge part of this piece. There are three couples in the show, James and Delores, David and Jonathan, and Nigger Mary and Elroy. We hear all three couples talk about or engage in sex. James and Delores are trying out a penis pump. David and Jonathan have some makeup sex after a fight. Nigger Mary promises two blowjobs to Elroy, in exchange for the hit on Jonathan's balls.
Homosexuality and religion are also driving forces in Mary. David's parents lament that he wont be honest with them about being gay and when they discuss this, they use words that I am sure make some in the homosexual community react the way some in the black community do when they hear the word nigger. Before Nigger Mary learns how to read, she lives her life based on the bible stories she was taught from her mother, who learned them from her grand mother, and so on. It is as a result of these stories that Nigger Mary resolves to do God's work by shooting Jonathan in the balls.
Racism is the setup. Religion and Homosexuality give us some context, and then the end of the play, Nigger Mary's last monologue is the pay off.
The end of the play, as I stated earlier, takes place at Nigger Mary's graduation ceremony. She was chosen as the Valedictorian and is addressing her speech directly to the audience. She starts off by pointing David out in the crowd, asking him to approach the stage. Once on the stage, she thanks David for suggestion she learn to read. Learning to read was the first step that got her to graduate college in the first place. At this moment, the audience is happy, "Things worked out in the end for everyone!". If it ended there, no one would be saying shit about shit. But the play doesn't end here. This is where the play actually begins.
For the next 5 minutes or so, Nigger Mary goes into a rant against homosexuality that would make Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and The Westboro Baptist Church proud, invokes the fundraising spirits of some of the best Arts organizations in the city, and proved that I learned something in English class in high school because I kept thinking that Jonathan Swift would have loved to see this play after he was done eating a baby.
In the closing monologue, the audience member is reminded that there are people in today's society that vilify homosexuality the same way that African Americans were, and in some places still are, vilified. That monologue shocks and upsets many because it hits very close to home.
Just as it is not okay to refer to someone as Nigger Mary, it is not okay to refer to someone as David the Fag. We scoff at one and laugh at another. Just as the idea of a family starting historical plantation to reenact the days of slavery makes us recoil in disgust, so too should the idea that a man could be shot in the genitals because of who he choses to sleep with. Just as religion was used to justify why Slavery was a good thing, so too is it being used to justify why Homosexuality is a bad thing.
This piece was great because it hides its meaning from you until the very end. If you are not careful, if you allow yourself to get hung up on the word nigger and the crazy claims made by Delores and James in their defense of their lifestyle, you miss the satire that presents itself when Nigger Mary, sets out to persecute gays they way Black people were persecuted.
I love this piece because it acts as a mirror to our own hypocrisy. We have just spent about 1 1/2 hour's feeling offended for this woman being called Nigger Mary, and laughed the whole time at her, and our, treatment of Fag David.
(If the formatting here looks familiar, it should -- its the same one the Angry White Guy Uses for reviews. Unlike the blog's title, though, this one is directly Copied.)
The actual narrative of Mary is centered around Christmas Break in 1983 at the home of James and Delores, an upper class family living in Southern Maryland. Their son David, a closeted homosexual, has invited his boyfriend Jonathan to spend sometime with him and his family during the break. It is during this visit that Jonathan meets the family servant, Nigger Mary. Through Jonathan, David realizes that he has a big problem with his family's treatment of Nigger Mary and Nigger Mary realizes that she has a big problem with David's sexual lifestyle. Thanks to David's realization, Nigger Mary is given the option of learning to read. She takes it and eventually graduates college. Thanks to Nigger Mary's realization, Jonathan gets shot with a BB gun in the balls by Nigger Mary's husband, Elroy. All of these events lead up to Nigger Mary's graduation speech at the end of the play, where in Nigger Mary address the audience directly.
Much of the controversy around this play if focused on the use of the word nigger. And frankly, in this case, getting pissed off about that, in this show, makes no fucking sense to me. If you get stuck on that word, you're going to miss the whole point.
This is not a play about racism.
This is a play about religion, homosexuality, and American Hypocrisy.
Racism and the word nigger are but a setup. They are used merely to illustrate the point that we as a society recognize that there are words we know we ought not use and that we recognize that there are ways people ought not to be treated. We know that it is objectionable to call some one Nigger Anything. We know that slavery was bad and that its effects still affect our society to this day. These points though, are clearly addressed, and justified in Mary, though.
Nigger Mary is questioned by David, at one point, about how she feels when she is called Nigger Mary and about whether or not she feels like she is being treated like a slave. Nigger Mary answers these questions on two occasions during the play. Once to David, in the presence of his mother, Nigger Mary's boss, Delores and once hours later to her husband, Elroy, in her own cabin. It is during these interactions that playwright Bradshaw, in my opinion, justify's his use of the word nigger and makes his comments about the African American community as he sees it today, making it a non issue.
Ok, so if we've address the Nigger Mary part, and the racial issues brought up by the play, we then examine what is left. Sex, Homosexuality, and Religion are all addressed culminating in one of the greatest satirical monologues I've ever witnessed at the end of a show.
Sex is a huge part of this piece. There are three couples in the show, James and Delores, David and Jonathan, and Nigger Mary and Elroy. We hear all three couples talk about or engage in sex. James and Delores are trying out a penis pump. David and Jonathan have some makeup sex after a fight. Nigger Mary promises two blowjobs to Elroy, in exchange for the hit on Jonathan's balls.
Homosexuality and religion are also driving forces in Mary. David's parents lament that he wont be honest with them about being gay and when they discuss this, they use words that I am sure make some in the homosexual community react the way some in the black community do when they hear the word nigger. Before Nigger Mary learns how to read, she lives her life based on the bible stories she was taught from her mother, who learned them from her grand mother, and so on. It is as a result of these stories that Nigger Mary resolves to do God's work by shooting Jonathan in the balls.
Racism is the setup. Religion and Homosexuality give us some context, and then the end of the play, Nigger Mary's last monologue is the pay off.
The end of the play, as I stated earlier, takes place at Nigger Mary's graduation ceremony. She was chosen as the Valedictorian and is addressing her speech directly to the audience. She starts off by pointing David out in the crowd, asking him to approach the stage. Once on the stage, she thanks David for suggestion she learn to read. Learning to read was the first step that got her to graduate college in the first place. At this moment, the audience is happy, "Things worked out in the end for everyone!". If it ended there, no one would be saying shit about shit. But the play doesn't end here. This is where the play actually begins.
For the next 5 minutes or so, Nigger Mary goes into a rant against homosexuality that would make Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and The Westboro Baptist Church proud, invokes the fundraising spirits of some of the best Arts organizations in the city, and proved that I learned something in English class in high school because I kept thinking that Jonathan Swift would have loved to see this play after he was done eating a baby.
In the closing monologue, the audience member is reminded that there are people in today's society that vilify homosexuality the same way that African Americans were, and in some places still are, vilified. That monologue shocks and upsets many because it hits very close to home.
Just as it is not okay to refer to someone as Nigger Mary, it is not okay to refer to someone as David the Fag. We scoff at one and laugh at another. Just as the idea of a family starting historical plantation to reenact the days of slavery makes us recoil in disgust, so too should the idea that a man could be shot in the genitals because of who he choses to sleep with. Just as religion was used to justify why Slavery was a good thing, so too is it being used to justify why Homosexuality is a bad thing.
This piece was great because it hides its meaning from you until the very end. If you are not careful, if you allow yourself to get hung up on the word nigger and the crazy claims made by Delores and James in their defense of their lifestyle, you miss the satire that presents itself when Nigger Mary, sets out to persecute gays they way Black people were persecuted.
I love this piece because it acts as a mirror to our own hypocrisy. We have just spent about 1 1/2 hour's feeling offended for this woman being called Nigger Mary, and laughed the whole time at her, and our, treatment of Fag David.
(If the formatting here looks familiar, it should -- its the same one the Angry White Guy Uses for reviews. Unlike the blog's title, though, this one is directly Copied.)
