Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
Arts & Entertainment
Opinionist: <em>Clybourne Park</em>
By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 14, 2010
Modified Mar 14, 2010
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 14, 2010
Modified Mar 14, 2010
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
If you see enough theater on a regular basis, you eventually develop an intuitive sense which tells you, usually within the first first couple of seconds, whether you're going to be grabbed by the lapels or hogtied for a long, hard slog. Sadly, the latter is much more common than the former, which is why I understand most people's reluctance to take a chance on theater. But a ticket to Clybourne Park, the acerbic new comedy by Bruce Norris, is an eminently shrewd investment, like buying a brownstone in prime Park Slope in 1959, when the play's first act takes place.
1959 is also the year that Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun debuted on Broadway; in that play a black family sows panic by moving into the all-white (fictional) neighborhood of Clybourne Park. In Norris's play, the same scenario is presented from the point of view of the alarmed, white homeowners who fear a decline in property values if a "colored" family gets a foothold. Act Two takes place in the same house fifty years in the future, with the same cast playing contemporary characters locked in battle over the same property. In 2009, Clybourne Park is a working-class, non-white neighborhood, and now the (black) neighbors are the ones up in arms when a white couple moves in and begins renovating the house, which has fallen into squalid disrepair. In comes the koi pond, a massive extension on the house, and a community petition against the gentrifiers' garish designs.
If any of that sounds heavy-handed or didactic, it's not. Norris isn't out to deliver any messages here, except perhaps that America's racial acrimony, while slightly less overt, remains as entrenched as ever. Norris has said he loves nothing more than a good argument, and Clybourne Park delivers, with a refreshing absence of sermonizing shrillness, and an electrifying dose of bold humor. As the uniformly phenomenal ensemble goes to war over a world they can't change and refuse to understand, the comedy inherent in their contradictions blazes like a bonfire, and the audience roars with laughter. This is by far the best new, naturalistic play I've seen this year, and you've got just a few more days to see for yourself; Clybourne Park closes March 21st.
Tagged
clybourne park
playwrights horizons
review
theater
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE arts-entertainment
The hottest way to show you're an authentic New Yorker is… riding a Citi Bike?
Thanks to Dua Lipa, Kim Kardashian, Timothée Chalamet and more, the rideshare program is having a moment.
By
Lindsay Lee Wallace
Published Oct 8, 2026
Is NYC’s hottest attraction the free observation deck at 1 Centre Street?
If you're playing tourist in your own town, this is an in-demand option.
By
James Ramsay
Arts & Entertainment
Is NYC’s hottest attraction the free observation deck at 1 Centre Street?
If you're playing tourist in your own town, this is an in-demand option.
By
James Ramsay
What happens when NYC kids take lessons in rock music? Really good bands.
By
Jayson Greene
Inside a photographer's journey to visit every neighborhood in New York City
By
Sonia Rao
Banned books and Winnie the Pooh: October in NYC libraries
By
Alec Hamilton
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .