Tonya Pinkins and Diane Wiest
(photo: Monique Carboni)
The New Group is now enjoying its first season at the
Pershing Square Signature Theatre. Starting off their relationship with the
contentious and provocative "Rasheeda Speaking" by Chicago-based and
produced playwright Joel Drake Johnson is a good idea and likely to prompt some
lively conversations. Johnson, who, while unfamiliar to me, has had considerable
success and earned praise for a number of his plays produced in Chicago.
The need to talk about a play right after seeing it isn't a
habit of mine, as I like to digest the experience, purposely avoiding the
pitfalls of post-play conversation. Which is to say that the subject and themes
that are contained in "Rasheeda Speaking" were so unsettling and
confounding that I could barely contain myself from asking questions, debating
the play's implications, and also considering the distinct possibility that maybe
I didn't really get it.
What I did get and is not a matter for contention is the top-notch
acting under the taut, precise direction of award-winning actor Cynthia Nixon,
making her directorial debut. About race and racism, friendship and loyalty,
professionalism and expertise, right-and-wrong-doing in the workplace, "Rasheeda
Speaking" takes place in the office/reception room of Chicago surgeon
David Williams (Darren Goldstein) in which the duties are shared by Jaclyn
(Tonya Pinkins,) who is black and Ileen (Dianne Wiest,) who is white. Oh, the
surgeon is white and, as we learn at the beginning, isn't happy with Jaclyn
whom he hired six months ago.
Hoping to find good reasons to let her go, he asks Ileen,
whom he has recently given a raise and made office manager, to keep a journal
of things that Jaclyn does and says that will support his decision before it gets
to Human Resources. Things turn both sour and ugly when Jaclyn discovers the
journal and proceeds vindictively but also craftily to hold her ground, part of
which means implementing a pernicious, if not altogether preposterous, plot to
test Ileen's credibility and challenge her sanity. Caught between pleasing her
boss and keeping her uneasy relationship under control, Ileen is loath to openly
accuse Jaclyn of anything even as Jaclyn proceeds to make each succeeding day a
living hell for Ileen
A long-time employee, Ileen is conscientiously accommodating
to the patients, notably Rose (Patricia Conolly,) an older woman who unwittingly
falls into the trap of saying things that are no longer considered socially/politically
correct, and spoken particularly in response to Jaclyn's abrasively cool and
condescending manner toward her.
At turns nasty and nice, vile and apologetic, capricious and
callous, Jaclyn is a complicated woman whose actions and attitude appear predicated
on what she has endured prior to getting this job, which for her is a step up.
Her agenda appear to be as calculated as they are revelatory, especially as it
relates the play's title: Rasheeda being the code word among white males to
identify the black women they see on the bus on the way to work. Aware that her
job is in peril, Jaclyn feels obliged to retaliate against what she perceives as
actions motivated by racism.
If you recall the husband's machinations to drive his wife crazy
in the classic film "Gaslight," you can imagine some of the stuff Jaclyn
pulls just as she artfully manipulates the situation to support her stand to
keep her job. She has, in her opinion, been living up to and beyond the demands
of the job, despite complaining that there are toxins in the air that make her
ill. What makes the course of the play so intriguing, are the contradictions
and the variables that prompt Jaclyn's actions, Ileen's timidity, and Dr. Williams'
duplicity.
Sharp and snappy, the dialogue perks with innuendos and invectives that keep us in the thrall of
the two women and their respective survival techniques. A fan of multi-award
winner Pinkins' performances in musicals
("Caroline, or Change," "Jelly's Last Jam,") she gives a
searing portrayal of a woman who as close to being a virulent sociopath as she is an impassioned provocateur
for equal rights. Wiest is a terrific actor who always gets closer to the bone
than even the playwright could hope, and does this as the besieged and
belittled Ileen whose defenses may not be quite as vulnerable as she lets on. Veteran
actor Conolly is convincing as the clueless patient and Goldstein is persuasive
as the spineless Dr. Williams. There is nothing spineless about this play,
perhaps only that it careens a bit recklessly and relentlessly toward its improbable
conclusion. Nevertheless, "Rasheeda Speaking" says it like it is, whether
Human Resources buys it or not.
"Rasheeda Speaking" (through March 22, 2015)
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre, 480 West 42nd Street
