Our group, consisted of Anthony Cacchione, Lucius Seo, and I, Christopher Chong, went on to see the performance “Straight White Men” by Young Jean Lee. In all honesty, we were driven to see this performance primarily because of the title, which we thought was very “out-there”, very strange, yet somewhat hysterical. Our immediate sense was that the performance was going to be some sort of comedy, perhaps joking around on the idea of being straight vs. gay, white vs. color, and/or men vs. women.
In the description provided by The Public Theatre, the show is a gathering of four guys, three sons and their father, during the time of Christmas. The wonderful evening eventually goes downhill as they start to evaluate their roles as being straight white men. Our group was very interested to see how this would all played out, and we solidify our decision to see it.
The stage of the performance was very well designed, and although the music was very vulgar and didn’t seem to fit the scene, everyone seemed to be quite content with what they were about to see (at least we were). I couldn’t help but to constantly laugh at the disparity between the music and the audience.
As the show starts and went on, one thing that really struck us was the game Privilege, which was a modified version of Monopoly. Created by the three sons’ mother, the significance of the game was that it was intended to teach the sons from not becoming that stereotypical “straight white men” by using monopoly rules. For example, instead of having “chance” and “community chance”, there was “denial” and “excuse”, which often led to a fine. As Tony has mentioned, Straight White Men deals with the idea of privileges that a straight white male have with respect to gender, race, sexual orientation, and this game was trying to depict these issues. The thing with the three brothers is their perception of privilege, which Matt (the oldest) attempts to disregard and completely depend on himself. The other two younger brothers, Jake and Drew, recognizes it and is indifferent towards it. As Matt continues to deal with his problems with privilege, his two brothers, and also his father Ed attempts to help him solve his problem, but ends up making the situation even worst. A supposedly wonderful Christmas evening ends up being one full of tension.
While the music is one that we thought did not suit the atmosphere, we also thought that the end was a bit abrupt, with everyone leaving the scene except Matt, who contemplates in front of us silently for about 30 seconds. We thought that it would’ve been better had their been closure to the situation, but the way in ended perhaps heightened the reality of the situation.
Although the show has ended its performances, Young Jean Lee continues to produce excellent plays, especially on subjects that are very controversial, like “Straight White Men”. We totally recommend anyone to go see it, and we do hope that the audience will be able to learn from what they see.
~Christopher Chong with Lucius Seo and Anthony Cacchione
P.S. Here is a cute video that I saw which teaches the idea of privilege
