The World’s Stage Theatre opens its 2014-2015 season next month with a production of Amiri Baracka’s Dutchman. Set entirely on a subway, the central action involves a flirtatious interaction between a white woman and a black man. The play debuted in 1964. Just over fifty years later, quite a lot has changed in race relations in the US. Of course, the more things change, the more...they continue to remain the same in different ways. There really is no glib way of relaying the complexity of interracial interactions in this country. It’s a big mess.
Director Sherrick Robinson brings the production to the stage for TWS. Which stage? The Underground Collaborative. So Milwaukee may not have a subway but we do have an intimate, little basement studio theatre with no mobile phone reception that should serve nicely as a subway ride for the purposes of the show.
Marques Causey plays a young black man named Clay who is confronted by an attractive, young woman named Eve played by Sasha Katherine Sigel. She’s eating an apple as she enters. Before long she’s feeding Clay an apple. Okay, so the symbolism is a little heavy handed, but Dutchman is one of those classics of American theater that simply doesn’t get produced enough. It’s got kind of a surrealist pull to it that isn’t afraid to be bold. Looking forward to this one.
The World’s Stage Theatre’s production of Dutchman runs Dec 12 - 20 at The Underground Collaborative on 161 W. Wisconsin Ave. (Say hello to the statue of Mr. Plankinton as you walk down the stairs.)
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For more information, visit the show’s Facebook Event page.
For tickets, click here.
