Prepare to be shocked. Jeremy O. Harris’s bold, scabrously witty 2018 play sees three contemporary couples enact pornographic Deep South slavery fantasies as a form of therapy, designed to reignite the black characters’ vanished passion for their white partners. At least five people walked out the night I was there.
It’s not an easy watch, not just because of the racist language and discomfiting power-dynamics. The role-playing leads to long sessions where the couples and their therapists (who are also in a racially mixed lesbian relationship) angrily express their feelings. Clint Ramos’s echoey mirrored set – enabling the mostly white audience to watch themselves voyeuristically watching – also makes it hard to hear at times.
