We know that David Mamet has written a new play called “Race,” that it is the first of his plays that he has directed himself in New York since the original production of “Oleanna” 17 years ago, and that it is going to begin performances at the Ethel Barrymore Theater on November 17th. We also know who the four leads are.
What we don’t know, even after all four of the actors were presented to members of the press three days into rehearsals to talk about the play, is much about the play.
David Alan Grier assured us that “Race” is about race. “If a play was called ‘Sex’ and they ate ice cream for two hours, you’d say ‘what the hell was that?’”
But following strict instructions, he said little more about the play, except that “this is probably the best role I’ve had in my career” — without explaining what the role is.
Since Grier’s is such an impressively varied career, ranging from Shakespeare to “A Soldier’s Play” opposite Denzel Washington to “Dreamgirls” to “Bewitched,” I asked him whether he has ever felt the need to complain about the way a role was written, the way a character was portrayed.
His answer — all the time. “I’ve had to explain many times ‘black people don’t talk like this.’ You have to tell people what is and what isn’t offensive.”
Has he felt the need to do this in “Race”? No, he replied.

Richard Thomas, still best-known for his role as John-Boy in “The Walton’s” three decades ago but a familiar face on Broadway now, started off even less forthcoming. Is the play about racism? “I don’t want to oversimplify it,” he said.
“Do you play a racist?” I asked him.
“I beg your pardon,” Thomas replied in mock indignation (at least I hope it was mock.) “I would be the last person to ask. I don’t think so.”
Here is what we eventually wheedled out of him: The play takes place in a law office. “The law is involved, because it involves lawyers, and race is involved. We’ve got men. We’ve got women. We’ve got blacks. We’ve got whites. We’ve got everything,” he said with a mock flourish.

“Do you play a racist lawyer?” I asked James Spader, who reportedly will be appearing on stage for the first time in some 25 years.

“I can’t answer that,” he said and I thought he would stop there, but he didn’t. “I’m not sure how thinly that word is sliced. It’s sometimes used only for the most overt things. The word itself is incendiary.”

Which word? Race or racism?

“Both.”

How is the lawyer you play in “Race” different from the one in “Boston Legal”?

“I’d have to tell you more about the story than they tell me I should,” he replied.

Kerry Washington, probably best-known for playing Ray Charles’s wife in “Ray,” Idi Amin’s wife in “The Last King of Scotland,” and Chris Rock’s temptress in “I Think I Love My Wife” (ok and Alicia Masters in “Fantastic Four”) allowed as that the play might provoke people, but not more than real-life events. “People are talking about the issues anyway, so it’s going to be a continuation of the conversation.” Asked whether there was any similarity to “Oleanna,” she said “The play is about four people who all think that their view of what happens is true.”

Along with the other actors, Washington commented on the “incredible privilege” she felt working with a director who was also the playwright. “I can ask him directly ‘is that what you meant?’” Mamet was not available to us, though, to answer this or any other question.

“We’re trying to intrigue people,” Jeffrey Richards, producer and publicist, explained the secrecy. “We don’t want to give it away. The title is enough.”

Photographs by Jonathan Mandell

Email