Straight White Men
White, male, hetero
Ed and his three grown sons come together to celebrate Christmas. They enjoy a bite from the Chinese takeaway, and the requisite drink, and cheerfully chat and lark around until an almost existential problem comes up: as a white heterosexual male, you are privileged but are not aware of it, and perhaps that is the greatest privilege of all. What happens if you lose that privilege?
In Straight White Men, the New York theatre-maker Young Jean Lee enters the domain of classic ‘naturalist’ theatre, but even then remains contrary, critical and witty. The play is a distant echo of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, which brought to the stage the moral conflicts of the white middle class in postwar America. In her play, Young Jean Lee examines the values of our neoliberal society and our struggle with all possible forms of identity – ethnic, social and sexual.
Straight White Men featured high on New York theatre critics’ pick of the year lists.
• In May 2012 the American-Korean Young Jean Lee was our guest with her Untitled Feminist Show, a wonderful performance in which she humorously ridiculed all sorts of clichés about (sexual) identity.
#bignames #norisk #happymood #gender #kteam #international
written and directed by Young Jean Lee | produced by Aaron Rosenblum | cast Gary Wilmes, Pete Simpson, Richard Riehle, James Stanley | associate director Emilyn Kowaleski | scenic designer David Evans Morrisc | costume designer Enver Chakartash | lighting designer Chris Kuhl | sound design by Jamie McElhinney, Chris Giarmo | movement Faye Driscoll | dramaturgy Mike Farry | associate producer Matthew Kagen | production manager Chloe Brown | technical director Nathan Lemoine | production stage manager Brendan Regimbal | propsmaster Elizabeth Sargent | associate dramaturg Eric Shethar | touring technical director Carl Whipple | touring lighting director Devin Cameron | touring sound director Nick Bixby | assistant directors Braulio Cruz, Kaela Garvin, Julia Mounsey,and Zachary Segel | assistant set designer Cate McCrea | assistant costume designer Christine Stevenson | assistant sound designer Jimin Brelsford
Straight White Men was co-commissioned by the Public Theater, the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University, Center Theater Group, Steirischer Herbst Festival, Festival d’Automne à Paris, and Les spectacles vivants du Centre Pompidou. It was produced by Young Jean Lee's Theater Company (Young Jean Lee, Artistic Director; Aaron Rosenblum, Producing Director). With special thanks to Hebbel Au Ufer| funding support generously provided by the Doris Duke Performing Artists Awards program; the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Theater Project, with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the MAP Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency | SWM was developed at Brown University's Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, Providence, RI. Residency support was provided by the Park Avenue Armory, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Columbia University and Spaceworks NYC, a non-profit real estate organization dedicated to expanding the supply of long-term, affordable rehearsal and studio space for NYC artists.
A House on Fire presentation; with the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union + logo
