Natchez Little Theatre is starting the new year with a production of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and 2012 Tony-Award Winning adult comedy “Clybourne Park” by Bruce Norris, written in response to Lorraine Hansberry’s play “A Raisin in the Sun.”

It portrays fictional events set during and after the Hansberry play and is loosely based on historical events based in Chicago. “Clybourne Park” premiered in February 2010 at Playwrights Horizon in New York and opened on Broadway on April 19, 2012.

The play was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and won the 2012 Tony Award for Best Play. It applies a modern twist to the issues of race and housing and aspirations for a better life.

The play begins in 1959 with grieving parents Bev and Russ as they plan to sell their home in the white middle-class Chicago neighborhood of Clybourne Park. Their neighbors come to visit to inform them that the family buying the house is black, and pleads with the couple to back out of the deal, for fear their property values will fall if black residents move in.

It becomes apparent the black family is the Youngers and one of the concerned neighbors is Karl Lindner both from “A Raisin in the Sun.” Arguments ensue and Russ finally snaps saying he no longer cares about his neighbors after their callousness and cruelty to his son Kenneth when he returned home from the Korean War. Kenneth committed suicide on the upper floor of their home.

In the intervening 50 years, Clybourne Park has become an all-black neighborhood, which is now gentrifying. A white couple, seeking to buy and replace the Younger house with a grand residence, are being forced to negotiate local housing regulations with a black couple representing a neighborhood organization.

The white couple’s lawyer, the daughter of the neighbor, Karl Lindner, and his deaf wife, mentions that her family moved out of the neighborhood around the time of her birth; the black wife is a relative of the family who bought the home from Bev and Russ.

The discussion of housing codes soon degenerates into one of racial issues, revealing resentments from both parties. While this is happening a workman finds an old trunk that Russ buried in the back yard with some of the things of their son, including his final letter.

An incredible ensemble cast has been assembled to play the 1959 characters in Act I and come back as modern day characters in Act II.

They are NLT veterans: Don Vesterse, Marianne Raley, Dwight Williams, Terrence Robinson, Becky Martin Anderson, Mike Thomas, Michael Ware, Stacey Carden and in her NLT debut, ShuNaiqua Ellison.

As the director of this play, I am very proud of the outstanding performances these talented local actors are giving and to the brilliant creative set constructed by Don Vesterse. Also, I am very appreciative of the fine work Michael Ware has given as my assistant director.

This wickedly funny and fiercely provocative play about race, real estate and the volatile values of each won nearly every major honor the theater has to give, including the Olivier Award, the Evening Standard Award, the Theatre World Award, the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award.

The fact that the playwright dashes the cautious hopes raised by Hansberry in “A Raisin in the Sun” would seem to suggest that “Clybourne Park” is a downer. On the contrary, it’s far too funny and stimulating to be that.

“Clybourne Park” runs Thursday through Sunday with 7:30 p.m. performances on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with a 2 p.m. final matinee on Sunday.

Tickets for non-members of Natchez Little Theatre, located at 319 Linton Ave. at Maple Street in Natchez, are $15 per person and should be reserved in advance by calling 601-442-2233 or guarantee your reservations and avoid the lines by purchasing your tickets natcheztheatre.org.

There will be a benefit/preview performance for the Adams County Sheriff’s Office and Natchez Regional Medical Center’s S.A.N.E. program at 7 p.m. today with $10 tickets, and all proceeds going to that worthy program.

I look forward to celebrating the start of 2014 with you at Natchez Little Theatre’s “Clybourne Park.”

 

Layne Taylor, director of Clybourne Park, is Natchez Little Theatre’s artistic and executive director.