Theater- Young Jean Lee’s “The Shipment”
I was surfing the various news sources today, and this article caught my eye. For you theater buffs, this might be worth keeping an eye out for if it tours through your city.
(photo by Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)
“The Shipment” by Young Jean Lee
synopsis
Playwright and director Young Jean Lee simultaneously delighted and challenged our audiences in 2007 with Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, her breakthrough production. Her provocative and hilariously satiric take on hot-button issues such as race and identity instigated spirited debate and established Lee’s as a fresh, significant, and original presence.
Now, Young Jean Lee applies her signature style and acid wit to the black experience and African American identity politics. In collaboration with an all-black cast, THE SHIPMENT takes the audience on an awkward and volatile roller-coaster ride through the absurdities and atrocities that arise whenever people start trying to talk about the black experience in America. Ludicrous, honest, and devoid of truisms, THE SHIPMENT dares to ask embarrassing questions and seek solutions to impossible problems.
THE SHIPMENT is, in the playwright’s words, ”an extremely awkward exploration of the experience of being black in America that raises pointed questions about ethnic appropriation and race relations that will leave people reeling… My work is about struggling to achieve something in the face of failure and incompetence and not-knowing. The discomfort and awkwardness involved in watching this struggle reflect the truth of my experience.”
(source: Wexner Center for the Arts)
I’m reading about this today in NY Times online and kicking myself to find out that the world premier was right here in Columbus, OH. AND, I’m a Wexner Center for the Arts member. This is what happens when your life gets sucked into a bat cave.
Here are some other sources…
NY Times theater review- OFF CENTER REFRACTIONS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN WORLDS
Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company website- youngjeanlee.org
Have you seen it? If so, what did you think?
