The cast of Clybourne Park
(Picture: Photo by Mark Douet)This exquisitely discomfiting riff on race and property by US writer Bruce Norris won the Evening Standard Best Play Award in 2010 and Oliver Kaderbhai’s punchy revival proves it’s become more, not less, relevant since then. The play begins in the Eisenhower-era Chicago of 1959 and ends in 2009 with a suggestion that Barack Obama’s election has changed little. As well as his beady scrutiny of how home ownership, colour and class intersect, Norris pretty much predicted our current culture wars.
The opening gives little hint of what’s to come as Russ (Richard Lintern) and Bev (Imogen Stubbs) prattle about ice cream and pub-quiz geographical trivia. Slowly we learn they are mourning a son who killed himself upstairs after committing atrocities as a soldier in Korea. Now, Russ has taken revenge on the indifference of their Wasp-y, churchy, Rotarian neighbours by selling the tainted – and therefore cheaper – house to a black couple. Although Bev affects a friendship with their black maid Francine (Aliyah Odoffin), ingrained prejudice and the capitalist imperative lurk just below the surface.
