The New Group is now enjoying its first season at the Pershing Square Signature Theater. Starting off their relationship with the contentious and provocative Rasheeda Speaking by Chicago-based and produced playwright Joel Drake Johnson is a good idea and likely to prompt some lively conversations. Johnson has had considerable success and earned praise for a number of his plays produced in Chicago.
The need to talk about a play right after seeing it isn't a habit of mine, as I like to digest the experience, purposely avoiding the pitfalls of post-play conversation. Which is to say that the subject and themes that are contained in Rasheeda Speaking were so unsettling and confounding that I could barely contain myself from asking questions, debating the play's implications, and also considering the distinct possibility that maybe I didn't really get it.
What I did get and is not a matter for contention is the top-notch acting under the taut, precise direction of award-winning actor Cynthia Nixon, making her directorial debut. About race and racism, friendship and loyalty, professionalism and expertise, and right-and-wrong-doing in the workplace, Rasheeda Speaking takes place in the office/reception room of Chicago surgeon David Williams (Darren Goldstein) in which the duties are shared by Jaclyn (Tonya Pinkins) who is black and Ileen (Dianne Wiest) who is white. Oh, the surgeon is white and, as we learn at the beginning, isn't happy with Jaclyn whom he hired six months ago.
Hoping to find good reasons to let her go, he asks Ileen, whom he has recently given a raise and made office manager, to keep a journal of things that Jaclyn does and says that will support his decision before it gets to Human Resources. Things turn both sour and ugly when Jaclyn discovers the journal and proceeds vindictively but also craftily to hold her ground, part of which means implementing a pernicious, if not altogether preposterous, plot to test Ileen's credibility and challenge her sanity. Caught between pleasing her boss and keeping her uneasy relationship under control, Ileen is loath to openly accuse Jaclyn of anything even as Jaclyn proceeds to make each succeeding day a living hell for Ileen.
A long-time employee, Ileen is conscientiously accommodating to the patients, notably Rose (Patricia Conolly) an older woman who unwittingly falls into the trap of saying things that are no longer considered socially/politically correct, and spoken particularly in response to Jaclyn's abrasively cool and condescending manner toward her.
At turns nasty and nice, vile and apologetic, capricious and callous, Jaclyn is a complicated woman whose actions and attitude appear predicated on what she has endured prior to getting this job, which for her is a step up. Her agenda appear to be as calculated as they are revelatory, especially as it relates the play's title: Rasheeda being the code word among white males to identify the black women they see on the bus on the way to work. Aware that her job is in peril, Jaclyn feels obliged to retaliate against what she perceives as actions motivated by racism.
If you recall the husband's machinations to drive his wife crazy in the classic film "Gaslight," you can imagine some of the stuff Jaclyn pulls just as she artfully manipulates the situation to support her stand to keep her job. She has, in her opinion, been living up to and beyond the demands of the job, despite complaining that there are toxins in the air that make her ill. What makes the course of the play so intriguing, are the contradictions and the variables that prompt Jaclyn's actions, Ileen's timidity, and Dr. Williams' duplicity.
Sharp and snappy, the dialogue perks with innuendos and invectives that keep us in the thrall of the two women and their respective survival techniques. I’ve been a fan of multi-award winner Pinkins's performances in musicals (Caroline, or Change, Jelly's Last Jam), and she gives a searing portrayal of a woman who as close to being a virulent sociopath as she is an impassioned provocateur for equal rights.
Wiest is a terrific actor who always gets closer to the bone than even the playwright could hope, and does this as the besieged and belittled Ileen whose defenses may not be quite as vulnerable as she lets on.
Veteran actor Conolly is convincing as the clueless patient, and Goldstein is persuasive as the spineless Dr. Williams. There is nothing spineless about this play, perhaps only that it careens a bit recklessly and relentlessly toward its improbable conclusion. Nevertheless, Rasheeda Speaking says it like it is, whether Human Resources buys it or not.
