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Kerry Washington co-stars in cool new comedy on a hot-button topic

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

BROADWAY REVIEW

Ever-incendiary playwright David Mamet brings a gallon of gasoline and a box of matches to Broadway with his new comedy "Race."

Opening Sunday at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, "Race" scarcely explodes into a satirical bonfire, but Mamet's typically cool comedy certainly sheds a deal of thoughtful light upon some of the resentments and misunderstandings still smoldering between Americans black and white.

Handsomely set in the library of the legal firm of Lawson (James Spader) and Brown (David Alan Grier) - note the characters' names — Mamet's scenario regards a potential new client, Strickland (Richard Thomas), a very white billionaire in very big trouble.

Strickland has been charged with raping a young black woman in a hotel. A married man, Strickland desperately claims he loves her and the sex was consensual. Headlines blaze everywhere.

In an acridly funny opening scene, the two cynical, savvy attorneys proceed to inform Strickland of his dim chances in both the real courtroom and the arena of public opinion.

It's all a matter of black and white prejudice — plus a torn red-sequin dress — which the playwright exploits for considerable corrosive laughter.

Meanwhile, the firm's new law clerk Susan (Kerry Washington) — the very latest model in trouble-making Mamet women — lingers in the background, listening, learning and making mistakes that prove to be not really mistakes by the end of the play's 90 minutes.

Yes, expect a very Mamet situation, which offers more of a platform for caustic social commentary than a deeply involving human drama. A more serious work than Mamet's farcical "November" that played the Barrymore in 2008, "Race" often is painfully humorous in its frank appraisal of American society. You'll get no free samples of the writer's wit quoted here — pay for that privilege by seeing his show.

Quite a good show it is, too, briskly staged with a steady hand by the author against aptly conservative surroundings. Between designer Santo Loquasto's not-quite-real setting and Mamet's direction, the play unfolds within a slightly detached atmosphere that focuses the audience upon the incisive dialogue and its ideas rather than those fiery emotions raging below its surface.

The actors perform it all pretty coolly as well. Looking every inch the solid legal eagle in his three-piece suit, Spader says outrageous things with calm authority. Grier is an implacable presence whose way with a candid remark can be clobbering. As the victim of circumstances, a dignified Thomas appears almost pathetically clueless. A crisp, poised Washington lends the watchful law clerk a good deal of youthful self-possession. The boys do most of the talking, but just you keep an eye on her, which is easy to do.

Consisting of two wise guys, a sorry wretch and an enigmatic woman, all of them dealing for better (or probably worse) with hot-button matters, "Race" is familiar Mamet territory for his many fans. Yet the mordant humor Mamet mines from contemporary racial perceptions is refreshingly honest and funny.

"Race" continues an open-end run at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47th St., New York. Call (212) 239-6200 or visit www.raceonbroadway.com.