Stages’ ‘Straight White Men’ bolstered by acting performances.
Stages Repertory Theatre’s Houston premiere of “Straight White Men” marks the first time local audiences can experience the work of Young Jean Lee
As the play’s title suggests, its talked-about author is something of a provocateur, deemed “the most adventurous downtown playwright of her generation” by the New York Times and “one of the best experimental playwrights in America” by Time Out New York.
Since most of her work has been experimental in form, “Straight White Men” may be considered atypical — a naturalistic play set in the family room of a middle-class home. It depicts middle-aged widower Ed ( James Belcher) and his three adult sons, Matt (Adam Noble), Jake (David Matranga) and Drew ( Jason Duga), as they reunite for Christmas. The 90-minute, intermissionless piece divides into three acts: Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the day after. The action, mostly, is just the games, rituals, recollections and general horseplay with which they pass the time.
The presumed point is to consider the aspect of “privilege” in the men’s life, even though the family is presented as progressive, ironically aware of their unsought advantages. The first hint of any actual drama comes when Matt breaks down in tears during the family’s dinner. The eldest, once considered the one with the greatest promise, Matt has hit a bad stretch and moved back with his father — unlike the other two sons, who are independent and just visiting. Matt doesn’t want to talk about the reason for his distress. The father suspects the vast unpaid debts from Matt’s student loans are the cause. Father offers to pay off that debt, but Matt refuses, not wanting anything he hasn’t earned.
Finally, it becomes clear
Matt’s psychic paralysis has to do with his inability to find a satisfactory means of dealing with his life of alleged privilege. He just wants to be “useful,” or at least, “not make things worse.” The others debate the issue.
This doesn’t strike me as very involving content for a human drama — more like a topic for some seminar on multiculturalism. The very concept implied by the title is too simplistic and schematic — which may be why the figures in the play come across as ideas or symbols rather than believable characters. They tend to say things like this:
“Women and minorities may get to pretend they’re doing enough to make the world a better place just by getting ahead — but a white guy’s pretty hardpressed to explain why the world needs him to succeed.”
Does anybody actually talk like that? Even if they did, as stage dialogue, it’s forced and stilted. The other key problem is the amount of time squandered on pointless filler before getting around to the intended point. The play opens with Drew tormenting Jake by singing an inane jingle, “I’m a little airplane” (presumably a childhood ditty), over and over, louder and louder. This bit goes on and on, and it’s unbearable — not a good way to begin any play. At last, Jake responds to the aggression and the two dive into a tussle, replete with mocking, fauxsexual gestures. Ha. Ha.
The play indulges in other overextended routines of this sort — either more sophomoric horseplay, rowdy renditions of song parodies with which the brothers convulse themselves or reminiscences of crude scatological pranks from childhood. After recounting one of these dumb exploits, one brother congratulates another, “That was genius!” Oh, brother. These guys make the Three Stooges look like George Bernard Shaw, Noël Coward and Somerset Maugham.
All this goof-off stuff is neither interesting nor funny. Worse, it has nothing to do with the play’s purported point. Who cares that these are straight white men? They could be the exact opposite of each designation and it wouldn’t matter. Once they’re established as tiresome clods, we’d prefer to seek other company.
Leslie Swackhamer, who has staged some of Stages’ finest productions, does as well as can be expected directing this one, at least keeping things lively. Ryan McGettigan’s excellent setting is every bit as believable as most of the dialogue is not.
The cast cannot be faulted either. Noble, Matranga and Duga go through their paces with boundless energy and, from time to time, manage to give even the more awkward lines some punch. The always excellent James Belcher has some recognizably human moments in his rather cryptic role as paterfamilias. Indeed, he and Noble share the play’s best moment — a silent one, with the son sobbing and the father simply holding him, and very well acted. See, with all the annoying horseplay and sociological mumbo-jumbo set aside, at last, a moment that rings true.
There may be some good ideas in “Straight White Men,” but they just don’t add up to a very good play.