Lampooning and Harpooning Stage and Celluloid Stereotypes

I was lucky enough to attend a non-public, invited dress rehearsal before even previews started of Rogue Machine’s production of Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2019. This two-act play is a sly, searing skewering of race relations that quite cleverly uses innovative stage techniques that in all my decades of experiencing Broadway, Off-Broadway, Hawaii and L.A. theater I’ve never seen before on the boards.

The show starts off conventionally enough, as the Frasiers, an African American family, prepare for a birthday party for Grandma, who lives with them. Marie-Françoise Theodore is the dutiful daughter Beverly, a bundle of nerves as she gets ready for the big dinner. Her affable husband Dayton (Marco Martinez) is far more relaxed and tries to calm the high-strung Beverly down and assist her as she presides over the meal, sets the table, etc. iesha m. daniels portrays their teenage daughter Kiesha (who may or may not be hiding something from them). Jasmine Ashanti plays the carefree sister Jasmine.

I believe that the crafty Drury means for the Frasiers to impart a sitcom type vibe suggesting lighthearted TV fare featuring African Americans, somewhere along the lines The Cosby Show. The pretty Marie-Françoise Theodore definitely gives off a Phylicia Rashad feeling. But as the play proceeds, Fairview inventively stages the action in unprecedented ways that indicates this play intends to upend stage and celluloid stereotypes and character conventions, such as the teenage girl who may have strayed off the straight and narrow path.

Indeed, going beyond the Bill Cosby tropes, with a subplot about a ne’er-do-well brother who threatens the Frasiers’ ownership of their hard-earned home, Fairview harkens back to 1959’s A Raisin in the Sun, the first drama by a Black female to be produced on the Great White Way. The iconoclastic Drury rather audaciously dares to lampoon its playwright, Lorraine Hansberry.

Fairview also takes a sharp left turn that I didn’t see coming from a million miles away in terms of some rather shocking casting. Because this critic is loathe to reveal plot spoilers, I’m not going to disclose how Drury’s story quite imaginatively breaks the fourth wall and more. If you want to find out, Dear Reader, you’ll just have to see this production for yourself, because I don’t want to ruin your surprises. But if you are an adventurous theatergoer who enjoys having your eyebrows (and perhaps blood pressure) raised and being challenged and forced out of your comfort zone, and especially if you’re interested in excoriating critiques of racial caricatures and of racism itself, then your trip to the Matrix Theatre is likely to be well worth your time and money.

I should also add that there’s another category of ticket buyers who will probably appreciate Fairview: Audience members who enjoy great writing and excellent acting. Oz Scott skillfully helms his ensemble of eight thespians. According to press notes, this veteran director “collaborated with legendary playwright Ntozake Shange, helping bring to life the acclaimed For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf, which he directed” in 1976. (The sharp-eyed viewer may conclude that Drury also takes swipes at For Colored Girls, which like Raisin, is regarded as an iconic, pathfinding play by a female Black bard that was performed on Broadway.)

Scott’s cast includes Tyler Gaylord, Michael Guarasci, Gala Nikolic and Daisy Tichenor. Scenic designer Mark Mendelson’s set transmogrifies the Matrix’s mainstage, with a letter perfect rendering of a middle class household that’s totally realistic – in stark counterpoint to the unfolding eye-opening hijinks onstage.

Some of Drury’s intent likely went over the head of this Caucasoid critic. Perhaps because I’m a white male, or maybe because I’m not smart enough, I don’t think that I understood everything the playwright was trying to say – the Drury is still out, so to speak. But after another rather ingenious interactive stage technique, I did grasp enough of the play’s meaning to get that I, along with all other what Hansberry called Les Blancs, are meant to ponder the double meaning of what Fairview reallymeans. Our thoughts are provoked in a highly creative, entertaining way by this play about racism. Unshackle your mind and see it – if you dare! In the immortal words of that great philosopher Rodney King: “People, can we get along?”

Rogue Machine’s Fairview is being performed Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 2:00 p.m. through April 19 at the Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Avenue, L.A., California, 90048. For reservations call ​(855)585-5185 or Rogue Machine Theatre Tickets

ALOHA OE (Farewell to Thee): Frederick Wiseman, nonfiction filmmaker par excellence, who I suspect is now chronicling the great documentary in the sky. Ye shall be missed.