Slave Play Act One
Photo: Dahlia Katz
Canadian Stage/ Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris, directed by Jordan Laffrenier, Baillie Theatre, Berkeley St., closes Oct. 26.
Enough has been written about Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play to warrant a Ph.D. thesis.
But first we should point out that Harris is on record as saying that he wants people to come to the play knowing nothing about it, so if you choose to do that, stop reading now, and return to the review later.
For those who choose to read on, let’s unpack what all the fuss is about.
Harris is is an openly gay Black man and activist.
The genesis for Slave Play occurred at a party where a man was talking about how much pleasure he was deriving from the rough sex his partner was demanding, at which point Harris, asked him, would he be talking this openly if his sexual partner were Black, and as Harris reports, the energy in the room totally changed.
There were only two people of colour in the room, and they were laughing because all that the White people could say was that would be different. In other words, they wouldn’t be able to talk about it openly had the partner been Black.
At that point, and this is my understanding, Harris realized that race and sex were inextricably intertwined and the idea for Slave Play was born. He was determined to write a play where he would make audiences feel as uncomfortable as those people were at the party.
What Harris had not counted on was offending a great many Black women in the process.
It says right on the opening pages of Slave Play that it is a comedy of sorts. More to the point it is a biting satire on the intersection of race, sex, and power, as well as a skewering of science and therapy, not to mention challenging people’s assumptions about White supremacy, and exposing Black emotional truth for what it really is.
Added to the mix is BDSM as a theatrical and political metaphor. Beneath the erotic spectacle, which is the showy part of Slave Play, Harris has in place a subterranean dramatic mechanism asserting that Bondage, Discipline, Sadism, and Masochism are embedded in modern intimacy.
As the play opens, the audience is treated, if that’s the right word, to the worst kind of stereotypical, racially charged sexual fantasies that have come out of the American Old South.
The lustful white overseer and the submissive female slave. The oversexed plantation mistress and the virile Black house boy.
A third couple is an outlier. A Black manager and a White indentured servant who to all purposes is a slave. Does a Black man have agency over a White slave?
Other people might feel uncomfortable at the graphic sex on a theatre stage, but I was just insulted by these hackneyed, cliché tropes.
Then I started to notice something different.
The female slave was anything but submissive. The indentured servant and the black manager were almost an equal match. Only the mistress and the house boy seemed to be according to convention.
And then suddenly, the overseer shouted “Starbucks!” and the scenarios fell apart. Two women came rushing down the aisles saying sentences like “Things were going so well”, and “Too bad you had to stop”.
End of Act One.
The reason I have gone into such detail is because Act One is Harris’ brilliant set up to the satiric heart of Slave Play – ASPT or Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy.
The two women who ran down the aisles, Patricia (Rebecca Applebaum) and Téa (Beck Lloyd), themselves an interracial couple, are the scientists who developed the experimental ASPT.
The therapy is designed to help interracial couples address sexual and emotional issues in their relationships by going back to a time when Blacks had no power and giving them agency. To that end, they have recreated a southern plantation – the MacGregor Plantation.
Act Two is the debriefing session between therapists and clients about what happened during the sexual play-acting scenarios we’ve just witnessed, and about which I’ll say only this.
The therapy which was meant to excavate deep racial and sexual trauma, which in turn would lead to healing and reconciliation, becomes a devastating unravelling of the race, sex and power dynamics that exist within each couple, the elephant in the room being White supremacy.
And by my account – Harris’ overarching theme after virtually destroying these relationships is racial trauma is a corrosive sexual agent.
The overseer and the slave are Jim (Gord Rand) and Kaneisha (Sophia Walker), the white mistress and the house boy are Alana (Amy Rutherford) and Philip (Sébastian Heins), and the manager and the indentured servant are Gary (Kwaku Okyere) and Dustin (Justin Eddy).
Harris has also written a third act which in this performance segues right after the therapy session.
Here we witness a harrowing confrontation between Jim and Kaneisha. It is this scene which has a significant number of Black women up in arms.
All eight actors – the scientists and their subjects – form a remarkable ensemble, breathtakingly so in fact.
Slave Play Act Two
Photo: Dahlia Katz
I have to single out Rand who has always been one of the most risk-taking of actors, and Jim may be the zenith of his riskiest roles, although Walker is not far behind. In truth, all three couples engaging in graphic sex on stage is a big demand on actors, and they certainly have my admiration for taking on these roles.
Laffrenier, CanStage’s associate artistic director, has done a stellar job at marshalling his forces in what is a very complicated stage picture. Anisa Tejpar must be congratulated for her major work as intimacy director.
The production values are very high for this production – Rachel Forbes’ costumes, antebellum and modern, Daniel Bennett’s lighting, Thomas Ryder Payne’s sound design, and particularly Gillian Gallow’s very effective set of shiny, reflective black marble walls and floor with one strategically placed ornate wall lamp – a place that is cold and uncompromising.
Does the shadow of slavery hundreds of years later impact on intimacy?
Harris would seem to think so.
Just look at the shocking revelations and accusations that come out amid the rubble of ruptured relationships in the second act of Slave Play.
Harris also places great importance on the word “listen” and the fact that Black people are not listened to enough. It is a recurrent theme throughout the play.
At the end of the evening my first reaction was that Jerome O. Harris is a playwright who has something to say. In fact, he has volumes to say and some of it is downright unpleasant.
For example, according to Harris, the minute there is a White person in the room, the issue of White supremacy is inescapable. It’s just there like the air we breathe.
I have never thought that, and I am resisting the idea. It is just too hurtful.
On that subject has he made me feel uncomfortable?
You bet he has.
On many levels Slave Play is infuriating . On the other hand, should we learn something from it? Maybe.
And then there is Broadway’s revenge. Slave Play broke all the records for a non-musical play, being nominated for 12 Tony awards in 2020, winning none of them.
As for all the fuss about Slave Play? It’s well deserved.