THE HANGOVER REPORT – Led by a sensational April Matthis, Claudia Rankine’s philosophical and confrontational HELP demands attention

April Matthis (background) and the company of Claudia Rankine’s “Help” at The Shed. (photo by Kate Glicksberg).

Last night, Claudia Rankine’s Help opened Off-Broadway at The Shed in Hudson Yards. The production was actually in previews this time two years ago when the pandemic emphatically shut down all live performances. After what seems like a lifetime, Ms. Rankine’s confrontational new play – which investigates what what white men and women candidly think about their own empowerment and, by necessary extension, this country’s race problem – has finally officially opened, more relevant and urgent than before (the work, as you’d expect, has been updated to incorporate the pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, etc.).

Taking Ms. Rankine’s real-life encounters with white people as its launching point, the unruly play probes verbosely as it unpacks these conversations (conducted in transitional spaces, mostly airports) to form its treatise. Although the recreated scenes delve verbally into notions of Whiteness and Blackness to varying degrees, the topic of race is invariably the elephant in the room. In a fantasia-like parade of scenes, the playwright relentlessly prods and pokes to ensure that audiences get the full lay of the land, thereby allowing for a deeply philosophical dissection of race. The play gets in your face, for sure, but it never speaks down to its audience, and it makes its case appealing to out intellect rather than our emotions. Suffice to say, Help is a difficult and uncompromising play (that’s perhaps 15 minutes too long), but I nevertheless left The Shed invigorated by its passionate rigor.

Staged with the breathtaking boldness of a true auteur, director Taibi Magar stylishly and strikingly evokes the topicality and urgency of the playwright’s fever dream of a play. Using highly choreographed movements and a keen sense of design, the work unfurls – on a sterile set that suggests neutral territory – like a runaway train, and it’s both unsettling and captivating to behold. Onstage front and center throughout the duration of the evening is April Matthis, who gives fearless, clear-eyed performance of fierce intelligence. Indeed, I can’t think of a more ideal stand-in for Ms. Rankine herself than this astonishing actress.

RECOMMENDED

HELP
Off-Broadway, Play
The Shed
1 hour, 40 minutes (without an intermission)
Through April 10

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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