NOTE: This play contains nudity, sexual content, sexual violence, and racially violent language.
Jeremy O. Harris' acclaimed drama Slave Play transfers to Broadway in fall 2019, following a celebrated run at New York Theatre Workshop from November 19, 2018 through January 13, 2019. Robert O'Hara once again directs the production, which plays a limited 17-week engagement at the Golden Theatre.
Already showered with awards, including the Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, The Lotos Foundation Prize in the Arts and Sciences and the 2018 Paula Vogel Award, Slave Play is as expertly written as it is hard-hitting. Divided into three acts, the play is both provocative and transgressive as it explores universal themes of attraction, relationships and race through the lens of four couples.
In Act I, entitled “Work,” we are transported back in time to the MacGregor Plantation, a few miles south of Richmond Virginia, as we encounter three couples’ interactions at work. Sexuality and exploitation collide in the staggering opening Act.
Act II, “Process,” takes the form of a modern day therapy session in which couples openly discuss the struggles of maintaining mutual satisfaction in their relationships. This Act also introduces same-sex relationships, fetishism and role-play (including the negative role that race can play in sexual fantasies).
Finally, Act III, “Exorcise,” tries to draw something of a conclusion on how our collective past manifests itself today in the way we view each other as potential sexual partners.
Not one for the faint-hearted, Slave Play is as risqué and as arousing as they come and ventures well outside the walls of traditional Broadway-accustomed comfort, so if you enjoy your theatre as tantalizing as it is thought-provoking, then this modern masterpiece by Jeremy O. Harris might be just what you’re looking for.
(Photos by Matthew Murphy)
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5 images The Old South lives on at the MacGregor Plantation — in the breeze, in the cotton fields...and in the crack of the whip. It’s an antebellum fever-dream, where fear and desire entwine in the looming shadow of the Master’s House. Jim trembles as Kaneisha handles melons in the cottage, Alana perspires in time with the plucking of Phillip’s fiddle in the boudoir, while Dustin cowers at the heel of Gary’s big, black boot in the barn. Nothing is as it seems, and yet everything is as it seems.
Jeremy O. Harris’ provocative new drama Slave Play, directed by Robert O’Hara, has been on quite the journey to the Great White Way. It has been showered with awards, from the Rosa Parks Playwriting Award to the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award and from The Lotos Foundation Prize in the Arts and Sciences to the 2018 Paula Vogel Award. It has also enjoyed an acclaimed Off-Broadway run at New York Theatre Workshop in fall 2018/winter 2019.
Last night the New York Theatre Guide was on hand to celebrate Opening Night for one of the most talked-about plays in town. Scribe Jeremy O. Harris took center stage at the Golden Theatre during the curtain call to take a moment and bask in his well-deserved standing ovation for his widely lauded drama Slave Play that has so deeply and vividly intertwined itself with the current Zeitgeist. Read our full 4* review of the production here.
Ahead of this Sunday's official opening, producers of the celebrated new drama Slave Play have released official Broadway production photos. Playwright Jeremy O. Harris' controversial piece began preview performances at the Golden Theatre on September 10, 2019, and is scheduled to officially open on October 6 and play a limited 17-week engagement through January 5, 2020.
How far back do our memories go? What’s the first thing you remember as a child? How old were you? That memory is part of our current self and what we consciously know. Is there something deeper though, an unconscious ancestral memory?
