Review: STRAIGHT WHITE MEN Looks At Privilege And The Expectations That Come With It

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Tuesday 5th July 2016

The State Theatre Company of South Australia and Queensland's La Boite Theatre Company have joined forces to create a production of Obie Award-winning New York playwright Young Jean Lee's play, Straight White Men. Resident Director, Nescha Jelk, has gone deeply into this clever script and mined a wealth of detail for her superb cast to bring to the performance.

Victoria Lamb's design is a spacious and comfortable main room with a couple of steps in an archway at the rear leading to the rest of the house. It reflects Ed's status as a well-to-do man of privilege and the warm colours, enhanced by the lighting design by Ben Hughes, gives it a cosy atmosphere. Music is by composer Kim Bowers, who operates under the name of Busty Beats.

It began before the actual play with hip hop music by women composers, played at a deafening level. It is not a genre that I would listen too, and far too loud for my taste and so I entered the auditorium when it faded away, out of respect for my hearing.

Three middle class American sons are at their father's home to celebrate Christmas. Matt, Jake and Drew, like their widower father, Ed, are straight white men. More than this, they are testosterone fuelled; macho men who not only deplore any sign of weakness, but are unable to understand or deal with it. Matt has lost his sense of direction in life, and has returned home to live with his father, helping out around the house to validate his being there. Jake, a banker, is now divorced. Drew thinks he knows everything about how other people should live their lives. With the other two brothers there, the three revert to their behaviour and rituals of Christmases long past, engaging in childish games, wrestling, and competing in other ways.

Over their traditional Christmas beers and a Chinese take-away meal, Matt suddenly bursts into tears, something that his brothers and father seem unable to handle. This changes everything, as they try to discover why he has broKen Down in front of them, and try to fix it. In doing so they alienate him and make things worse, coming from their own world view of what they think it means to be a straight white man.

For anybody with some knowledge of psychology, in particular of Transactional Analysis, this play will give you a field day watching the four participants switching rapidly though the adult, parent, and child states, with the consequent difficulties that they experience in communicating.

What they appear to be doing is making an attempt to bring him back in line with their own lifestyles, ambitions, and expectations, rather than to really understand what is wrong and support him. It is more about them than him as he is now a threat to their belief system of what it means to be them, straight white men.

Roger Newcombe, in an all too infrequent appearance with the company, plays Ed who shows how rapidly times have changed through the age gap between his life plan as a young man of finding a good job for life, marrying for life, buying a home and raising a family, against his sons ideas in our rapidly changing and technologically based world. Being a straight male to him is different to the way his sons perceive it, and Matt's breakdown only serves to make Ed realise that his ideas no longer apply to modern careers and relationships. Newcombe presents that transition from Ed approaching the Christmas festivities as usual, with the same expectations as past years, to becoming disconnected from his sons, bewildered, and struggling to understand, with the gradual rise of anger through his frustration. Ed's world is collapsing around him, and Newcombe places that clearly before us in his thoughtful performance.

Matt, the eldest, is played by Hugh Parker, at first presenting us with the most mature and sensible of the three siblings. His tearful collapse sees the veneer slip away and Parker us Matt's depression and his inability to cope with not seeming to be able to fit in with the world around him and the expectations of others. His withdrawal and refusal to discuss it is the catalyst for the second half of the production, and Parker takes a firm hold on his character to produce the darkness and angst.

Chris Pitman plays Jake, the middle son who displays many of the psychological characteristics associated with a sibling in that position. Jake has a temper that erupts suddenly when pushed just a little too far and Pitman makes good use of this trait, physically demonstrated when reacting to teasing by Drew, and emotionally when confronted with Matt's breakdown and withdrawal. Pitman enables us to see the suppressed rage building before each outburst in a well-measured display of emotions.

The youngest brother, Drew, is played by Lucas Stibbard, in an energetic performance, creating a lively character who is continually playing silly games, baiting Jake until he gets a reaction resulting in a chase and wrestling bout, which he always loses, being less powerful than his older brother. Stibbard embodies that irritating younger brother of childhood who cannot seem to grow out of it in adulthood.

Together, the four are a strong ensemble and allow us to see the dysfunctionality in their relationships that they, through their closeness as a family, do not recognise and acknowledge. It is only with the catalyst of Matt's breakdown and eventual explanation that the cracks burst open, to the dramatic conclusion.

There is a fifth character in this play who is separate from the action, the 'stagehand-in-charge', who appears before the play begins to welcome the audience, with a 'welcome to land', acknowledging that the performance is taking place on the traditional lands of the Kaurna people, and begin the performance, reappearing between acts to control the actors and change the set. Assistant director for this production, and actress, Alexis West, who plays that role, is an indigenous Australian woman, whose position of power adds another level of questioning to the actual privilege held today by straight white men.

To post a comment, you must register and login.