‘White Man’ looks to open eyes, hearts through satire
New play takes audience to place of privilege, power, presumption
In the end, Luna Malbroux’s “How to Be a White Man” isn’t about the lesson its title promises. But past experience has taught the comedian, performer, writer and activist that audiences might gravitate toward literal interpretations.
Last year, she created the app EquiTable, which divides group bills like restaurant checks based on how much different demographics earn on the white male dollar. Even though the app was developed as a part of Comedy Hack Day, users didn’t always get that Malbroux wasn’t actually advocating that every shared cost be split as her app dictates.
“Through my experience with EquiTable, I’ve learned that a lot of people don’t get satire,” the 31year-old queer, black woman says on a recent afternoon at PianoFight, where the FaultLine Theater production of “How to Be a White Man” runs through July 1. In writing this play with fellow playwright Jennifer Lewis, she worried that some audiences, especially black ones, might see the title “and think that this play is
about assimilation or striving to the goal of being a white man.” Some white men have asked her if the show is “another thing that’s making fun of ” them.
Midway through the show’s run, though, she has seen that audiences “get” that “How to Be a White Man” is neither erasure nor easy potshots. The jokey lessons Malbroux teaches about white masculinity — “Step three: Did you know you’re an expert?” — serve a subtler goal: to find a way to be a black woman in a world that will never bequeath Malbroux white male privilege, that would laugh at her if she tried to seize it.
Privilege, the show suggests, is a dubious prize anyway. It oppresses the have-nots, of course, but it also costs the haves their values and integrity, for privilege is never simply having. It’s taking.
To write the play — her first — Malbroux drew on her own experience as well as interviews she has conducted, many as part of her “Mapping Privilege” series on KQED. “I grew up in a small town,” — Opelousas, La. — “straight-A student, got scholarships. I’m Ivy League-educated: Columbia University, for social work. I’ve been a part of the tech world, part of the theater world, part of the nonprofit world, within leadership in the nonprofit world.” Yet time and time again, with cops, lovers and servers, among others, “none of that matters.”
Each time the police shoot
“How do you really reach someone who is insistent that their perspective is right and that there’s no other way?” Luna Malbroux
another unarmed person of color, she says, “you hear, ‘Oh, they should have spoken eloquently and been polite.’ I only say all those things about me for proof: It does not matter how ‘respectable’ you are, how eloquently you speak. If you are a black person living in America, you still face constant, constant experiences, on a daily basis, where people try to tell you you’re not human.” Dehumanization starts early in the show, when a white character whom the script calls Grown-Ass Woman (played by Ashley Gennarelli) touches Malbroux’s hair — even though she knows the Solange Knowles song “Don’t Touch My Hair.” What follows is probing discussion of what it means to be offensive — does it matter if you didn’t intend to offend? — as well as an episode of white tears, complete with a projected definition (a favorite device in the show) of the phenomenon: “The levy of emotions thrown towards people of color when white people are confronted with the truths of racism, systematic oppression, discrimination, historical trauma or the notion that, maybe, Eminem was not the best rapper of all time.”
When Grown-Ass Woman starts to cry, Malbroux’s character moves, reluctantly, exasperatedly, to comfort her. At this moment in the Friday, June 23, performance, an audience member called out to Malbroux, “You don’t have to!” If the play were a horror movie about white privilege, this would be the “Look behind you!” or “Don’t go into the basement!” moment.
Under the direction of Nikki Meñez, the show hasn’t cohered yet. It’s not always clear when a scene is over, who certain characters are or what rules govern the world (or worlds) of the play. Especially ill-defined are the figures played by Jennifer Greene and Jessica Jones — part goddesses, part sounding boards. At the beginning of the play, Malbroux at first says she’s not sure why she’s summoned by them, only to instantly dissolve that wonder so she can segue into complaining.
Still, for its candor, for its fresh voice and for the genuine urge its main character expresses to eke out a place for herself in the world, the show has potential. And when it comes to the interminable but nonetheless necessary task of raising consciousness, facts alone won’t cut it.
Although Malbroux herself has worked in antibias education, “I still find myself really hitting myself on the head trying to figure out, how do you really reach someone who is insistent that their perspective is right and that there’s no other way? I think it just starts with empathy.
“The great thing about theater, performance, comedy, art in general is that it invokes empathy. It pulls on the emotions. I think that’s where a lot of this conversation is: It’s a very emotional conversation. It’s hard to hear someone in a very logical place just spout statistics if you’re feeling attacked, if you are feeling hurt, if you’re feeling that your emotions are dismissed. The beautiful thing about theater is that one, you’re with a group of people experiencing it all at the same time. There’s a very communal aspect to theater. And then there’s a very emotional aspect to theater, that you’re able to connect with characters in different ways, and maybe see a little bit of yourself in them.”