Charles is a property developer who has built private prisons in Iowa. He is also an art collector. The paintings in his house are not just hung up; they are “curated”. It is as if the art has been incarcerated on his walls.
Yet this man sees himself as one of the good guys. Claudia Rankine’s riveting play is like Yasmina Reza’s Art given political purpose. Charles is a white liberal who believes he is counterbalancing a history of racism by accumulating the work of black artists – amusingly rendered in written descriptions on the walls of Debbie Duru’s chic set.
Played by Matthew Pidgeon in Natalie Ibu’s excellent production, he has the suave assurance of a CEO but also a convincing air of even-handedness.
Which makes him all the more of a problem. It doesn’t take much to expose the limits of the white liberalism of his wife, Virginia. Played by Kate Copeland, she snaps under pressure, blandly cheering on black icons such as Serena Williams and Michelle Obama but recoiling in the face of real racial conflict. Blind to her own advantages, she wishes people would just get along.
Likewise, Nick Blakeley’s Eric, a white art dealer, cares more for fine wine than addressing the questions his merchandise raises.
So when a tremendous Estella Daniels arrives as Charlotte, a celebrated black artist whose photographs reconstruct unseen moments of racial violence, she sees Charles as her most serious adversary. Exhibiting not rancour but a deep moral sense, she chooses to look at him in the same way he looks at her.
He does not like it. His privilege is not just in his wealth, it is in his very skin; a skin he takes for granted. It puts him – and by implication, every white person in the audience – at the centre of his own universe. In this way, his championing of black artists looks less like a progressive gesture than a fetishisation of dead black bodies.
Yet Rankine’s is a subtle debate. Like their names, Charles and Charlotte are mirror images, each damaged and defined by their cultural experience. Tense and timely, The White Card points fingers, but also points the way to positive change.
At Northern Stage, Newcastle, until 14 May. Touring until 16 July.
