Tuesday, January 31 & Thursday February 9
Race: A Play by David Mamet
Location: 7 - 10:00 pm at Student Union Theatre

Race is a riveting play in which three attorneys, two black and one white, are offered a chance to defend a white man charged with a crime against a black woman.

USA TODAY REVIEW:

Race is set in the law offices of Jack Lawson, who is white, and his black partner Henry Brown. We meet them as they're deciding whether to represent Charles Strickland, a white man accused of raping a black woman.  By the end of the first act, Lawson is engaging Susan, a young black lawyer who works for them, in a debate about how best to present the case. "This isn't about sex, it's about race," contends Susan, to which Lawson replies, "What's the difference?"

Race may be the central theme, but Mamet, who also directed, is more interested in how differences – in color, gender, ethnicity and class – foster a lack of communication and breed resentment. "It's a complicated world, full of misunderstandings," Lawson observes. "That's why we have lawyers." 

ASSOCIATED PRESS REVIEW:

"The title is stark in its simplicity but "Race," David Mamet's provocative, hot-topic new play, is anything but simple.  The questions "Race" poses and the answers its characters supply add up to an intriguing study of perception — from both black and white viewpoints. Which means there are no neat, easy conclusions to be drawn even though Mamet throws out some fascinating, dramatically charged opinions, not only on race but on the divide between men and women as well."