THEATRE: THE SHIPMENT
At first glance, it comes across like a bad gag gone wrong, not unlike the infamous ‘Black Face’ incident on Hey Hey It’s Saturday. But The Shipment, by the Obie Award-wining American playwright Young Jean Lee, is poor taste by design, not by accident.
The title is taken from a hip hop song, “In that case it was about a shipment of drugs,” says Lee, “But the overarching idea was that the root of all the problems in the States was the fact that Africans were being sent to the US like they were a pack or shipment of goods.”
Tackling all the most cringe-worthy racial clichés – the black rapper, the crack dealer, the slave and the minstrel – in short sketches, song, and dance, Lee acknowledges that’s a borderline uncomfortable experience. “It’s funny but you you’re not sure if you’re supposed to laugh, so you’re looking around you to see what other people are doing.” Which is quite ironic, considering how racism is often perpetuated in the same way.
She adds, “I can’t count the number of people who told me that their friends had dragged them to the show, and they’d said, ‘Oh my god, this sounds terrible,’ and then … they were completely floored.” Lee is Korean-American, and it is perhaps this positioning both inside and outside the debate that gives her perspective power.
“People were not interested in talking about race … I thought it would be an interesting challenge, to see if there was a way to trick people into engaging with it,” she says. Certainly, theatre is an unusual place to be both humorous and scathing – the set-up sounds more suited to a Saturday Night Live sketch or a Spike Lee film (his 2000 satire Bamboozled ticks the same boxes).
“It’s really difficult to address racial issues in any form of art, because normally it comes out so didactic, and preachy and kind of obvious.” Obvious, perhaps – but then that depends on the audience. When the show toured Europe, Lee was shocked to have people come up to her afterwards and say, “‘Oh we really loved your show, and we loved how it demonstrated how stupid Americans are about race, and we’re so glad we don’t have race problems here in Europe.’” Lee knew she couldn’t, “Send the message that Europe doesn’t have race problems!” and so now they add a paragraph that deals directly with each city’s unique concerns.
Will Sydney receive a similar treatment? Lee pauses, “Sydney’s a little bit different, I don’t know that people in Sydney would be so clueless as to say they have no race problems.” While one can hope, I recommend that Lee adds in a section just in case. After all, Hey Hey It’s Saturday was filmed in our backyard … and it was so recent, our faces are still red from it.
Jun 8-11, Playhouse @ Sydney Opera House, from $59, 9250 7777, sydneyoperahouse.com
