He's walking down the sidewalk with two thick and long braids, standing six feet and five inches tall, wearing a see-through shirt, carrying bags from fashion designers and smoking a cigarette. He's between New York Fashion Week events and his Broadway opening.
6 comments:
I want to see Slave Play so damn badly. A play that explores the legacy of slavery in interracial sexual dynamics is bringing an age old topic into the spotlight. Slavery should not be forgotten and Jeremy O. Harris is bringing something visceral and graphic to light that needs to be addressed. Jeremy O. Harris seems like an incredibly brilliant human. The fact that he is involved with theatre and television, in particular Euphoria which is freaking brilliant, shows how multi faceted he is. This man has damn talent. The fact that this show is so layered and important and it is opening next to Broadway productions like Phantom of the Opera and Frozen is freaking insane. I hope it does well on Broadway. Critics have given it really positive reviews, however, I have heard that the turnout has been pretty poor so far. The youngest black male playwright to have his production on Broadway. Literally incredible.
Reading this article immediately after reading The interview with Suzan-Lori Parks on her play White Noise was very interesting. Seeing the connection between both playwrights and their intentions and how they are trying to strike a conversation about uncomfortable topics and issues that are of importance in today's society. I like how one of the actors in the broadway production describes the space that needs to be created as a "brave space". The idea of safe spaces is not being ignored and pushed aside but saying both spaces can work well with each other and make society a better place. I believe that more plays that challenge America (individuals make up this country) to face who we truly are is important and it is only when we do this that we can move forward and bring about change. Like the James Baldwin quote Suzan-Lori Parks uses in her introduction to White Noise "Not everything can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” “If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” This is a play I am definitely interested in seeing and having a conversation about.
Though I'm not always here for the concept behind brave spaces, and am more of an advocate for safe space, I think that this play is accurately depicting what it means to be uncomfortable when watching a show. What I love about the director of this show, Robert O'Hara is that he creates work about race, particularly black people, but he caters it towards white audiences in a way that is uncomfortable but rightfully so. He's different from the directors that focus on Black themes and matter but only aims to please and serve other Black audiences, he makes work that quite literally faces its white audiences and has them listen, feel, and ponder what it means to be so engulfed in a story that is not about them. In the last show he directed, A Raisin in the Sun, O'Hara ended the show by splitting the house apart, dropping a flat of the new house and projecting the n word spray painted onto the house before blacking out. He doesn't shy away from discomfort, he encourages it in a tasteful manner.
Having seen so much press around this new work, Slave Play, I am extremely intrigued. I am dying to see this show, and the fact that Harris has faced so much controversy regarding the content of the show draws me into it even more. (I mean, there was a whole movement to shut it down!) This article discusses that this show is on the same block as Frozen, and Mean Girls, both musicals targeted to a larger, family audience. This show, however, is nothing like Broadway has ever seen. Harris wants the audience to struggle with the material and feel uncomfortable because the issues that are brought up such as racial inequality still exist today. I also admire the playwright’s connection to the work, as Harris speaks on being less concerned about the critics and more concerned about the people in which he is trying to reach, young black Americans.
I want to see Slave Play so badly. I love that Jeremy O. Harris is not afraid to make an audience uncomfortable when it comes to telling the story about slavery. I think it's important for an audience to be made uncomfortable once in a while. It's important to tell the stories of those who don't have the opportunity to tell their own. It's important for. It's important to remember slavery and all of the awful, terrible things that have happened in history. I think Jeremy O. Harris and everyone else involved in the production of Slave Play are all incredibly brave to be able to put on a production such as this one.
I have seen so much buzz surrounding “Slave Play”! I think that - with where we are both socially and politically in this day and age - a play that explores a centuries old power dynamic (in any old interracial power setting or a sexual scenario) is something that we, as a society, need the chance to be exposed to. I think that the feeling of discomfort that playwright Jeremy O. Harris describes is one that needs to be felt; one so well executed that it is not necessarily unnerving, but thought provoking instead. Granted, this does seem a confrontational piece, and rightfully so: it has taken America over 150 years to even begin acknowledging the injustices perpetrated against those it enslaved. Sometimes, the only way to take action is to demand a reaction and, when an audience is held captive for two hours, it is sometimes an easy job to perform.
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