Consider, dear reader, this paradoxical truth from the restless mind of the auteur artist Young Jean Lee, currently accessible in Chicago through the Steppenwolf Theatre Company: "There is nothing you can do to erase the problem of your own existence."
If your first reaction to reading that statement is to assert that your ongoing charming presence on this planet does not, in fact, create a problem for anyone, then you likely are not a straight, white man or, at least, you’re not a straight, white man who thinks himself progressive, self-aware, cognizant of the wretched history of American racism, sexism and inequality, and at least generally in favor of social justice.
If you are such a subspecies of humanity, then you surely are aware that many of those in the surrounding subspecies see you and your stubborn privilege as the root of ongoing injustice. They think you should shut up, stand down, back off, quit dominating, quiet your mouth, "mansplain" less, "manspread" really a whole lot less, and embrace quietude and humility a whole lot more.
"Straight White Men," the fascinating and hugely arresting Lee-authored and Lee-directed piece that emerged in the downtown New York scene and now has been revised and restaged in the Upstairs Theatre at Steppenwolf, is at its core an exploration of the question as to whether a straight, white man should — in real, practical terms, not in personal brand-building declarations of sympathy on Twitter or Facebook — do that to himself in capitalist, dog-eat-dog America.
As in, like, dude, just quit and become the world’s most supportive temporary maker of copies.
As a corollary, this piece also explores the question of what would happen if some men did. Would other straight, white males admire this subjugation, this voluntary throwing away of one’s shot, or would they rise up in aggressive indignation, not unlike a sounder of swine attacking the runt of the litter?
Young Jean Lee looks me in the eye and smiles her most sympathetic smile.
“I feel sorry for you,” she says. “You don’t get to have one of the big categories of oppression. You are expected to understand everyone else’s experience and yet no one wants to understand your experience. Everybody is…
Young Jean Lee looks me in the eye and smiles her most sympathetic smile.
“I feel sorry for you,” she says. “You don’t get to have one of the big categories of oppression. You are expected to understand everyone else’s experience and yet no one wants to understand your experience. Everybody is…
To do this, Lee puts a family of straight, white men under the microscope with a satiric vivacity that reminded me of how George C. Wolfe once attacked African-American stereotypes in "The Colored Museum."
She begins with a welcome-to-the-theater committee led by a couple of gender-fluid performers (Syd Germaine and Elliott Jenetopulos) who hand out earplugs as they force the audience to listen to a pre-show treat: the song "Yankin," as recorded by Lady and here played at ear-splitting and discomforting volume. You can Google the lyrics. You’ll understand why it was chosen. Thereafter, the two guides tell everyone that the music was specially picked to offer a taste of what it is like to live in a world that does not accommodate itself to your needs.
Then they bring out the straight, white men. As if they were exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Bro-dom.
From there, you get a family drama set on Christmas Eve — a popular setting therefore — where three adult siblings, handsome straight, white males all, return to visit their widowed father, Ed (Alan Wilder). There’s a banker, Jamie (Madison Dirks), a tenured, hotshot academic and writer, Drew (Ryan Hallahan), and a guy called Matt (Brian Slaten), who graduated from Harvard after a formidable youthful academic career but who since has pursued career options that have perplexed his family. Matt lives at home with his dad. Weirdly, he declares himself happy. "Straight White Men" could well be subtitled, "What to do about Matt?" both what Matt should do about Matt and whether those who love him owe Matt resistance to what Matt wants to do about Matt.
In many ways, this is a show that says it’s OK not to live up to your own potential. You know, for reasons of social justice. What do you think?
It’s complex, of course, like most of these issues of power and privilege. And there are several features of this piece that make it truly distinctive. For starters, you are watching a family drama in which everyone genuinely loves each other, which is rare. Of course, straight, white males, even in adulthood, even professors and bankers, show their mutual affection in ways peculiar to the tribe — they slap butts, tweak nipples, make hay with flatulence, fake sexual aggression, cavort and prance like PJ’ed 11-year-olds at a sleepover. Lee and her cast precisely choreograph these antics, which take up a good portion of the available 90 minutes; like a Russian formalist critic, she is making the familiar seem strange. And it works remarkably well.
So well, in fact, that you could invite a reunion of the most notorious fraternity imaginable to this show and they’d enjoy it and recognize themselves. The characters are not stereotypes. Likability was job No. 1. Part of the point of this enterprise is not being hostile to the straight, white men, which is, of course, Lee’s sneaky way of provoking conversations about privilege and power with the privileged and powerful maybe even being in the room and feeling, well, known. Which is what all we all want to feel.
Lee is dancing a careful dance — "Straight White Men" is not intended to be an apologia for the same, although Lee clearly is fascinated by what feels to me like a personally-felt paradox of feeling sympathy for individuals of the ilk, but abhorring the tribe as a whole. Even here, though, she clearly sees the absurdity thereof, being as no individual can act without reference to the tribe.
The show is underscripted in spots, straight whites being generally fond of their own voices. The physical business feels like it needs more chatter at times, if only to maintain truth. And in this incarnation, the relationship between Wilder and the actors playing his sons is not as secure and credible as that of the sons themselves. Wilder is funny and vulnerable, but, it seems, of a different family. Similarly, the physical design feels overly ambivalent and underexplored — Lee, whose roots are in anything but traditional naturalism, seems to be worrying too much about a switch of genre.
No need there. She can do both. By throwing herself into this new phase of her career, she inherently will freshen the form, without her needing to explicitly point out her own deconstructive impulses. We can arrive there all our own. We already see the cracks in the fortress.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @ChrisJonesTrib
When: Through March 19
Where: Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St.
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Tickets: $20-$89 at 312-335-1650 or www.steppenwolf.org
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