I felt drained when I left the Booth Theatre after seeing American Son, Christopher Demos-Brown’s emotionally charged drama about race and racism as they play out in relationships, between the police and black male teenagers and between an interracial couple. I was all in for the intense 85 minutes, directed by Kenny Leon, that present Black Lives Matter themes in the scope of one upper-middle class family in a moment of crisis.
Kerry Washington gives a powerful performance in every word and gesture as Kendra Ellis-Connor, a mother terrified because it’s 4 a.m. and her 18-year-old son, Jamal, has not returned home and isn’t responding to texts or phone calls. She’s at a police station in Miami trying to get help from a dim-witted white officer, Paul Larkin (Jeremy Jordan, in photo with Washington), who reveals his racist feelings in the questions he asks, such as does Jamal have a street name or any visible scars, tattoos or gold teeth. His image of a black teenager seems to be that of a gang member.
Her son goes to a private school where he is one of only three black students. After she provides Jamal’s physical description she throws in some personality details, such as that he likes Emily Dickinson’s poetry. Larkin says he likes Emily Dickinson too and quotes, “It is a far, far better thing I do than I’ve ever done . . .” When Kendra disgustingly tells him that’s Charles Dickens, he’s not sure he believes her. “I don’t think so,” he says.
Her son also has a white father, Scott Connor (Brian Avers in the role usually played by Steven Pasquale), who left Kendra four months before for a white woman. This plays out interestingly as the police respond quite differently to the mother and the father. But nothing is just black and white in any sense of that term in what both Kendra and Scott come to reveal about how they really think about blackness and their son. (I was surprised to learn the playwright is white.)
Besides sending him to a nearly all white school, Kendra, a psychology professor, has been careful to make sure Jamal speaks clear, well-enunciated English. Her biggest concession to his racial identity is his name, which she accuses Scott of disliking because of its blackness. Scott refers to his son as J rather than Jamal, defending it as “a male bonding thing.”
What Kendra doesn’t know is that Larkin is holding out on her, waiting for a senior officer to arrive. Jamal had been one of three black teens riding in the Lexus his parents gave him, although the registration was in his father’s name. That alone would have been enough to arouse suspicion by the police, but Jamal had recently added a bumpersticker that said SHOOT COPS in large letters and “with your phone whenever they make a bust” in “little bitty font.” Kendra had seen it as a statement rather than a command. After all, Scott is an FBI agent.
Kendra not only allowed him to keep the bumpersticker on, but she also hadn’t bothered to ask who he was going out with that night. This sparks one of many points of conflict between the parents. Scott says it would have been all right for Jamal to be in the Lexus with two white teens but not two black teens. Kendra thinks it shouldn’t mater. But, of course, it does.
It’s not as if she hadn’t had a heightened sense of the dangers of what it is to be a black teenage boy. She had nixed a motor trip Jamal had planned with some white friends through the Deep South. Her fear was that he would flirt with a white girl in that territory that isn’t as accepting as Miami, or that the boys might innocently stop at a Klan hangout and Jamal would be a target.
Unfortunately that protective instinct wasn’t working on this particular night. All Kendra knows about her missing son is that the police have the car but they won’t answer any of her questions about where Jamal could be.
That information will be delivered by the senior officer, Lt. John Stokes (Eugene Lee), who is black and who refers to Kendra as “sister,” which makes her furious. He’s had the answer to her question all along.
When that question is finally answered for Kendra — and all of us — the impact is as sudden and painful as a gunshot. It should have been predictable, but the play is so skillfully written and acted that the entire audience seemed to scream out. In all of my decades of theatergoing I don’t recall ever hearing such a loud and widespread reaction. Kendra’s shock was our shock and so too was her grief.
All the theatrical elements work together to create the mood for this forceful story to unfold. Peter Kaczorowski’s predawn lighting enhances the blandness of the police station, designed by Derek McLane, complete with steady rain pouring down outside the windows. I do have to say, though, that unless police stations have changed drastically, this one is far more welcoming than any I ever set foot in during my days as a police reporter for The Baltimore Sun. In my time I visited all eight of the city’s precincts and I can tell you they were dismal places.
Reflecting on this play has been a cathartic experience such as I haven’t had in a long time. It makes me think of Aristotle’s definition of tragedy: “Tragedy is an imitation of an action, that is at once serious, complete, and of certain magnitude, embellished with every kind of literary device, these devices appearing in various parts of the play, told in action, not narration, through pity and fear causing a catharsis of emotions.”
American Son is just such a play and I can’t imagine anyone bringing it about with such raw power as Washington, whose last Broadway appearance was also her debut, in David Mamet’s Race in 2009. It will be a tough choice next May when I have to decide between her and Glenn Close as I cast my Drama Desk ballot for Best Actress in a Play because I’m sure both will be nominated. Both deserve it.
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