Theater in black and white

Two Chicago plays -- "Jitney" and "Spinning into Butter" -- tackle racial issues from opposite sides of the tracks.

By David Moberg

Aug 16, 1999 | On different stages of Chicago's prestigious Goodman Theater this summer, two playwrights -- one a white woman, the other a black man -- have explored the American drama of race in two gripping and thoughtful productions. The first, "Spinning Into Butter," is a controversial play by the highly praised newcomer Rebecca Gilman. Opening in New York next season after its Chicago premiere, "Spinning into Butter" tells the story of a white, well-intentioned college dean whose deeply conflicted and befuddled feelings about race erupt in the midst of a crisis at her small, nearly all-white liberal arts school. The second, "Jitney," is a newly revised work by one of the nation's leading playwrights, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson, an African-American who has stirred debate over his call for better funding for theaters controlled by black artists. Part of his decade-by-decade saga of African-American life in the 20th century, "Jitney" lays out the tragedy of a hard-working man whose hopes for his son -- and for his own life -- are dashed, not so much by an overt act of racism as by the slowly grinding wheels of a prejudiced social machine.

In both plays, the dilemmas in confronting racism's legacy lead to personal as well as social tragedy. The juxtaposition of the two reveals how the master/slave dynamic has persisted long after slavery's end. Gilman's characters struggle with race from a largely white perspective: How should they talk -- and how do they really feel -- about blacks and other minorities? Is anything correct about "political correctness"? What can they do to assuage their guilt or help minorities? Wilson's characters -- all of them black -- face the flip side of those issues: How can blacks maintain their dignity in a society that denigrates them and would prefer to ignore them, except when actively blocking their attempts to make meaningful lives for themselves? What kinds of compromises are acceptable, or necessary, with whites and the power elite? Is it possible to maintain an African-American identity and community without resources under African-American control? The common theme is that blacks and whites alike are trapped by history -- no confrontation with the legacy of racism has a chance of success without addressing the continuing imbalance of power.

"Spinning Into Butter" takes place in the office of Dean Sarah Daniels, who is in her first year at a small Vermont college. It's clear from the start that Daniels means well. She wants to provide a special minority scholarship to a deserving student. But when the chosen recipient edgily insists on being identified as "Nuyorican," Daniels tries to cajole him into being Puerto Rican for the sake of the forms she must fill out. Later, when it's reported that two racist notes had been attached to the door of black student Simon Brick's room, the white administrators, faculty and students all rush to advance their various self-serving agendas: They keep it quiet (to avoid bad public relations); call a campus-wide meeting (and write a lengthy paper analyzing and condemning racism); and form Students for Tolerance (to bolster chances of getting into law school). Nobody bothers to consult the minority students -- and only Daniels suggests talking to Simon first.

As the campus crisis deepens, the other administrators demand that Daniels come up with a concise, 10-point plan for battling racism on campus -- one that won't require much money, but promises to have "great impact." In a long night at the office, Daniels begins making a list, in parts cynical, whimsical and painfully ambivalent. "Stop being stupid," is the first step on the not-terribly helpful agenda. "Admit defeat," it concludes.

Daniels unleashes her tirade of confusion and despair to a horrified colleague. She wants to help minorities -- she even studied African-American literature! Maybe nothing works, she fears. Maybe she can't transcend racism. Then the tone shifts ominously: Maybe blacks can't either. She reflects on her experience at a black college, and living in Chicago. "In the abstract" blacks were fine, she said, "but in reality they were so rude." Although the people who irritated her may have been a minority within a minority, "the ones who were awful seemed exceptionally awful, loud and belligerent and abusive ... I know blacks have agency," she acknowledges, but thinks maybe they don't succeed just because they're "lazy and stupid."

After the FBI determines that Simon sent the notes to himself, he is expelled by the other administrators, without so much as a phone call to his parents. Daniels falls victim to the crisis as well. There is as little effort to understand Simon's actions as there was to support him as a lonely and isolated student, but the cop who drives him home observes afterwards to Daniels, "He wouldn't have done that to himself if somebody hadn't done something to him." Daniels notes that Simon was like the storybook character of Little Black Sambo, getting all the menacing tigers to chase each other around the tree, ultimately "spinning into butter."

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