Clybourne Park

Clybourne Park

There is nothing like mordant humour to drive home a serious point and Bruce Norris’s latest production, Clybourne Park does just that. After Barak Obama’s election almost three years ago some declared a post-racial America, but

Norris’s beautifully structured drama Clybourne Park says hold on a minute; perhaps, when it comes to race relations in America not much has changed. Peter Evans will direct the Melbourne Theatre Company production of Clybourne Park, which opens Thursday 22 September, 2011 at 8pm at the MTC Theatre, Sumner.

In the 1950s, a white community in Chicago splinters over a black family moving into their neighbourhood. In the second act of this play, we fast-forward to the present and the same house, but a very different situation. Now, the suburb is being gentrified and a white couple wants to move in. As we climb through the looking-glass of Lorraine Hansberry’s American classic A Raisin in the Sun, Clybourne Park is about a neighbourhood pitching a horrifying yet hilarious battle over territory and legacy. It reveals how far our ideas about race have evolved – without losing one per cent of their controversy.

Race and real-estate. The original idea of the production came from Hansberry, whose own parents brought a house in a white neighbourhood in Washington Park which resulted in a legal case (Hansberry v. Lee U.S. 32 1940). The Hansberry family home, a little red brick three-flat which they purchased in 1937, is now up for landmark status before the Chicago City Council’s Committee on Historical Landmarks Preservation.

‘The various takes on the conundrum of race in American life have made fascinating reading, but for our money Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park beats them all for confidence, humour and scope. You don’t need to know the iconic fifties play that Norris uses as his starting point, Lorraine Hansberry’s A Rain in the Sun, any more than you need to know the original song on which a jazz man constructs his improvisations.’ MTC Artistic Director Simon Phillips.

Bruce Norris is a writer and actor whose plays include The Unmentionables, The Infidel, Purple Heart, We All Went Down to Amsterdam, The Pain and the Itch, A Parallelogram, Against It and The Vanishing Twins. His productions have been performed at Woolly Mammoth, Steppenwolf Theatre Company and produced by Philadelphia Theatre Company, Playwrights Horizons, Royal Court Theatre and The Galway Festival in Ireland. He has been awarded the Steinberg Playwright Award 2009, the Whiting Foundation Prize for Drama 2006, two Joseph Jefferson Awards in Chicago, the Kesselring Prize and a 2006 Honourable Mention.

Director: Peter Evans. Set & Costume Designer: Christina Smith. Lighting Designer: Matt Scott. Composer: Jethro Woodward. Assistant Director: Adena Jacobs.

Cast: Patrick Brammall, Laura Gordon, Bert LaBonte, Zahra Newman, Luke Ryan, Greg Stone and Alison Whyte.

Venue: The MTC Theatre, Sumner. Season from  17 September to 22 October, 2011. Bookings: The MTC Theatre Box Office 03 8688 0800 or mtc.com.au

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Win Opening Night Tickets

Competition Completed - We have our winner - Carol Bradford

Win two tickets to the opening night performance of Clybourne Park on Thursday September 22 at 7.30pm at The MTC Theatre, Sumner, Melbourne (1 double pass available).

The Challenge: Explain why you would like to see Clybourne Park? We will choose a particularly convincing entry as our winner.

To enter, visit our contact form http://www.stagewhispers.com.au/contact and type Clybourne Park in the subject field. Then type your answer as a message.

Entries close: 8pm, September 6, 2011.

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