‘ American Underg round’ manipulates audience
Accurately convey ing t he ef fect of watching t he world premiere of “A merican Underg round” at Barring ton Stage Company requires mixing clichéd metaphors: You will feel beaten over t he head by a play t hat wears its hear t on its sleeve while preaching to t he conver ted as it delivers its message f rom atop a soapbox mounted in a pulpit.
It rea l ly is t hat shout y and unsubtle. I’m loath to say t his, because t he play, by Persia nA merican writer and actor Brent Askari, genera l ly a lig ns with my politica l beliefs and anger at what is happening in today ’s United States, but “A merica n Underg round” is t he libera l equiva lent of a MAGA ra l ly: It manipulates its audience with selective facts and shrewdly ca lculated stor y telling to such a deg ree t hat t hey respond emotiona l ly, intellectua l considerations be damned.
It ’s so ef fective on some t hat, at Sunday ’s opening per formance, members of t he audience actua l ly cheered and applauded an ex treme act of v iolence t hat t hey would have decried as abhorrent had it been committed by anyone on t he opposite side of t he politica l spectr um. It ’s disappointing t hat such a one- sided work is t he winner of BSC’S Burman New Play Award, and t hat t he company ’s producing ar tistic director, Julia nne Boyd, in her direction of t he play didn’t f ind a way to tone dow n Askari’s more histr ionic tendencies. They both, and t he play, may be on t he rig ht side of histor y ( I hope), but t hey ’re on t he wrong side of good ar t here.
Set in t he near f uture,
“A merican Underg round” sta r ts building tension and uncerta int y immediately. It opens with Jef f ( Justin Withers), a college student, addressing t he audience directly, say ing he’s in a location he can’t disclose, for sa fet y reasons, but it ’s not in A merica, which he and his fa mily f led. We t hen move to Florida, a lit tle less in t he f uture, where Jef f lives with his parents — a black A merican fat her who is a professor ( A la n H. Green) and a Latina, libra r ia n mother ( Natascia Diaz) who is t he daug hter of immig ra nts.
Their handsome, middleclass home ( set by Mariana Sanchez) looks normal and li ke A ny where USA in t he present day, but we soon lea rn t he world outside is a ver y dif ferent place: