by Lingxi Chenyang
Audiences won’t know whether to laugh or cringe during experimental playwright Young Jean Lee’s “The Shipment,” a hilarious and irreverent play that will challenge audience members’ stereotypes of race this weekend in two performances at the Moore Theater in the Hopkins Center.
Lee’s critically acclaimed play confronts racial identities by focusing on common cultural depictions of blacks. Although she deals with serious subject matter in her work, Lee is careful to avoid writing plays that are overly political or intellectual, she said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
“I am not the kind of person who would want to see any kind of play on racial identity,” Lee said. “That is my idea of a worst nightmare, to see political art. But I make political art all the time.”
Subverting audiences’ expectations for a serious theatrical work, “The Shipment” is laugh-filled and lewd, but also thought-provoking. Sketches involving krump dance sets, standup comedy and obscene language are designed to entertain audience members while also challenging them to reevaluate dominant narratives of black culture. Similarly, the play features over-the-top characters — including Crackhead John, Video Ho and Omar, a black comic-turned-dealer-turned-rapper — that challenge popular stereotypes, creating a humorous effect.
“The Shipment” is not Lee’s first satirical social commentary. The Brooklyn-based playwright has a track record of exploring racial stereotypes in a highly confrontational way.
A Korean-American woman, Lee wrote her first successful play about cliches of Asian-American identity. Lee explained that the play, “Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven,” was written out of resentment against the stereotypes of her culture in both the media and people’s attitudes. In that play, Lee used irony and spectacle to highlight the absurdity of overt racism against Asian culture.
As an Asian-American woman, Lee openly admits that she has no business addressing black identity. With “The Shipment,” however, she does so anyway, examining African American stereotypes in history, popular culture and the contemporary consciousness.
With lines like “I’m going to rob people and shoot them and also sell drugs,” Lee employs outrageously racist stereotypes to criticize the worn-out labels attributed to black culture. While this shockingly blunt language is in part intended to entertain, Lee said she also hopes to “unsettle and challenge” the audience to reconsider their personal notions of race.
However, Lee said she has no interest in directing these notions one way or the other.
According to Lee, “The Shipment” does not have a specific “message” or “agenda,” but is intended to “challenge everybody’s assumptions.”
Although her play has been exceptionally well-received by critics, Lee said she does not necessarily hope for a positive reaction from audiences. The worst response to the play, Lee said, would be no response at all.
Lee’s attitude towards her work is in keeping with her unorthodox artistic mission. She does not target a particular audience for her shows, but instead tries to craft plays that will speak to everyone in different ways.
In keeping with these goals, the Hop’s outreach program recently initiated the distribution of a fill-in-the-blank Madlibs survey, which takes a humorous approach to the issue of stereotypes. The program produced videos of students’ responses to questions such as “I don’t like it when you call me ” and “People think I’m , but I’m not.”
Following the play, Lee and English professor Soyica Diggs Colbert will conduct a roundtable conversation on racial identity politics, popular culture and humor’s role in enabling and subverting stereotypes. The event will give students a chance to speak directly with Lee about her work.
“A lot of people go to my plays dreading them, like it’s medicine,” Lee said. “They think they have to go because it’s about race and race is going to get shoved down their throat, and you’re told that you’re supposed to like it. But a lot of them are pleasantly surprised by how much fun they have.”
“The Shipment” will be performed Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Moore Theater.
