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Fear of A Hood
By Adam Simon
Directed by Dan Kerr-Hobert
Produced by Sansculottes Theater Company
At Live Bait Theater
3914 N. Clark Street
Chicago, IL
Call 773-540-3576, tickets “Pay What You Wish” between $10 - $20
Thursdays thru Saturdays at 8 pm
Sundays at 7 pm
Running time is 85 minutes with no intermission
Through June 3, 2007
Intelligent look at friendship and race relationships by a skilled young playwright
Sansculottes Theater specializes in featuring collaborative writing and their newest work, Adam Simon’s Fear of A Hood is a tightly written and refreshingly moving male friendship drama that deals with race relationships among close roommates. Fear of A Hood, in a world premiere at Live Bait Theater, reveals tensions within the friendship of three roommates, Marshall (Chris Roe), Ben (Eddie Jordan III) and David (Brad Smith).
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When Marshall gets his unemployed roommates work as stand-ins to play slaves and Klansmen in a TV documentary for a history channel, Ben, an African-American and David, a non-religious Jew become entangled in a complex struggle of conflicting cultural identities about their perceived pasts. Each internalizes their role as a slave or KKK member. The play is steeped in hilarious inter-personal male relationships situations anchored by the deep feelings of genuine love (non-sexual) between the three roommates. The roommates try to understand each other and come to terms with the foibles of each personality.
Adam Simon has created three empathetic guys whose angst is both realistic and refreshingly moving. We care a lot about these guys and Simon has avoided the clichés and stock situations inherent in many a race drama. This friendship play deals with a frank discourse of the subtle manner each race and ethnic group deals within their heritage.
Ben is troubled by playing a slave even though he has no racial sensitivity beyond that of an even tempered college educated American. David is a non-religious Jew who constantly questions Ben about underlying racial issues in sports and pop culture. Ben stays amazingly cool and tolerant toward his role playing a slave until one evening when he has a nightmare about the Klan visiting their apartment.
Marshall is the WASP roommate who acts as the moderate voice of reason until he asks Ben what it is like to play a slave. Ben responds with a powerful role-playing scene involving the simulation of being bull wiped. Marshall is us experiencing the fear of being wiped. The snap and crackle of the whip gave me goose bumps. This scene alone makes the play worth seeing.
Fear of A Hood features three excellent performances by Jordan, Roe and Smith upon Adam Simon’s intensely insightful script that develops toward a surprisingly sad ending that was telegraphed by a premature phone call by David to his parents. I’d advise rearranging the ending to maximize the dramatic impact. Fear of A Hood is still a well crafted work tightly written and nicely paced with a valid look at present day race relations and male friendship. Adam Simon is a promising new voice. His play is a worthy effort.
Recommended
Tom Williams
tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast
Date Reviewed: May 20, 2007
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