Race
1 hour and 40 minutes, with one intermission
Race - 2009 Broadway History , Info & More
Ethel Barrymore Theatre (Broadway)
243 West 47th St. New York, NY
From Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet, comes his most explosive four-letter word yet. Race.
Race is the riveting new play by America’s foremost playwright, Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-Plow, American Buffalo, November).
Directed by the playwright, it stars Emmy Award winner James Spader (“Boston Legal,” Sex, Lies and Videotape), Tony nominee and television star David Alan Grier (“A Soldier’s Story,” “In Living Color”, “Chocolate News”), Kerry Washington (Ray, Lakeview Terrace) and Richard Thomas (“The Waltons,” Democracy, Twelve Angry Men).
Race - 2009 - Broadway Cast
FEATURED REVIEWS FOR Race
Fighting the Last War
4 / 10
But it might as well have been called Language, which, in Mametland, is all that exists. (When the client worries that a particularly damning quote will be “taken out of context,” Lawson replies dryly, “Well, that is the definition of a quote.”) Characters? Not so much. Lawson (ably embodied by Spader, with only a soupçon of Boston Legal’s Alan Shore) is the only somewhat human entity onstage—Brown is little more than a gadfly/wingman/janitor, and Susan is, well, “fragile,” and therefore treacherous. Sex, race, loyalty, betrayal—it’s all just lecture Legos for Mamet. He makes the ineffable all too effable, and eff you if you can’t take it.
Race
6 / 10
But despite the many provocative attitudes expressed onstage, the play's ideas don't coalesce in meaningful fashion, and the characters, particularly the evasive defendant and the intern with possible motives of her own, never quite come into focus. And with the latter character, Mamet once again reveals the misogynistic attitude toward women that made such works as 'Oleanna' and 'Speed-the-Plow' so problematic.
Category
Race History
Other Productions of Race
| 2009 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Race - 2009 Broadway Awards and Nominations
| Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play | David Alan Grier |
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