The Niceties
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Geffen Playhouse
Through May 12
In The Niceties, playwright Eleanor Burgess constructs a dialectic between a white liberal professor of history who believes in the ideal of America despite its failings, and an angry African-American student who bitterly challenges the bedrock of her teacher’s beliefs. While neither the script nor the production is as strong as it might be, the play presents an accurate reflection of the unhealthy schism within the American left that is adversely affecting its progress.
Directed by Kimberly Senior at Geffen Playhouse (following a run last year at the Huntington in Boston and the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York), the drama takes place in the spring of 2016, prior to the election of Donald Trump, in the office of 60-ish professor Janine Bosko (Lisa Banes). On the walls are pictures of such historical icons as George Washington, Nelson Mandela and Emiliano Zapata, as well as a Solidarity poster featuring Lech Walesa. The choice of subject in these photos isn’t random; an instructor and published scholar at a prestigious university, the seemingly prolific Banes specializes in writing about revolutions.
She also teaches a course about them, and when the play opens, she’s conferencing with a student from one of those classes, Zoe Reed (Jordan Boatman), who’s compiled her own thesis about the impact of slavery on the American Revolution. Zoe’s main contention is that, unlike the Russian Revolution of 1917 and others, the events in the colonies in the late 18th century never progressed from moderate to radical because the people at the lowest rungs of the ladder, the slaves, were proscribed from taking action, from pushing the movement further.
The professor’s response to Zoe’s impassioned and provocative theory is initially polite but dismissive. Her first line in the play is to note a missing comma. She goes on to inquire about Zoe’s sources and to object to her referencing of websites instead of print books and journals. She comments on Zoe’s posture and advises her not to hunch. The discourse between the two women is overshadowed by the radical differences in their age and perspective, for whereas the professor regards herself as open-minded and untainted by racism, to Zoe she’s an example of the clueless white mentality that perpetuates the system.
The ante in the talky first half streaks skyward after Zoe reveals that she’s been taping their discussion, with remarks from the professor that could sabotage her career.
Both women make a case for their point of view, but under Senior’s direction Banes comes off as so patronizing, priggish and controlling that you’re inclined to favor Zoe, whatever the flaws in her argument. It’s not till the second act, when the balance of power shifts and the professor becomes vulnerable, that you begin to appreciate the older woman’s side.
The pace picks up considerably in Act 2, when the actors become other than mouthpieces for a particular perspective. Though mention is made of their backgrounds — Zoe’s is upper-middle-class, while the professor is of Polish stock and has a son — we learn little else about their relationships or their intimate lives. Now though, with Zoe full of righteous fury, Boatman gets to display her skill — tamped down prior not only by the limitations of the script but by Senior’s staging, which inexplicably positions her in profile throughout the first half of the play, so that we rarely see her face. And with her brittle posture gone, Banes’ professor also becomes more accessible and real.
Still, in the end you can’t help feeling manipulated by dialogue that is so obviously and overtly constructed to make a point, albeit a cogent one. That the play ends abruptly, with issues unresolved, is no surprise; it’s part of a dire message to and about a nation at the crossroads.
Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Los Angeles; Tues.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat., 3 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. & 7 p.m.; through May 12. https://geffenplayhouse.org. Running time: approximately one hour and 50 minutes with an intermission.
