The play Clybourne Park

50 Years to Move In And Out
The play Clybourne Park was enjoyable to watch. The first act that takes place in 1959 showed the world of an older couple who wants to sell their house and move to the city. With the beginning of the play, the man was in the armchair, the woman was busy organizing things with the help of the black servant. During the act, other characters enter the house and the main conversation topic among them is selling the house. The couple's neighbors are trying to convince the couple not to sell it to coloured people. As things are going, we discover another crucial point, that the couple had a soldier son who committed suicide after the war. The casting choice was reasonable for the couple who lived in the house, the neighbors and the coloured maid and her husband. Outfits were related to the period and for the 60’s and so was the furniture and design of the house (being expressed in wallpaper, chairs, pictures, serving dishes, radio). The location of objects on the stage gave the possibility for movement of the actors, the exit and entrance of the house, the second floor (the audience cannot see but know it's there) and access to the kitchen.
The second act takes place in 2009; it is already the period of our lives. In this act a young couple wants to buy the same house from a couple of coloured people. There is a resemblance between the characters in both acts but we are aware that the white community that used to live there was replaced by coloured community and the white couple might be considered exceptional this time.
I think the acting in act one was more successful from the second because the second conversation felt a little strange. The players sat on chairs which limited their movement and created a sense of distance. The text was more modern but also heavier. There was a feeling that a few phrases repeated themselves from act one and we as an audience we felt like were already in this situation before. The house on the stage was empty from objects and furniture but you could see that there were some in the past. I liked the ending of the play which shows an event that happened just before act one, where the mother tells her son that she feels that a great change is coming, while the boy writes a letter. This is something ironic because there is actually change the son’s death and the coloured family that is moving to the community.
The idea of the play was not to show examples of racism but to show territories and the belonging of a place for people. I think they showed it well, how in act one the community is white and coloured people are not accepted and in act two the community is coloured and white people are not accepted, and what is common is the house which stays the same throughout the play.