Theatre Review: Caroline Or Change Will Change You
Watching Caroline or Change, I could not help but think of my own family and ancestors, and what it meant to survive so that the next generation could, hopefully, thrive or get the chance to actualize themselves. For two hours and 25 minutes, with a 15 minute intermission, the new Broadway musical turned what could be overly-simplified as a washing machine into a symbol of being stuck in a cycle that, deep down, you know you will never break. For black people in America, that has been their story since the conception of the U.S.; a cycle of cruel enslavement that has reshaped but never been fully broken. Yet for many others, like Jewish people post WWII, the land of the free gave them protection.
Caroline or Change finds its heart in a very frustrating, perplexing question; what happens when two groups with a history of violence, oppression, and constant questioning as to whether they should even exist are prejudice to each other? Can a victim also be a victimizer? It is a question that Caroline (Sharon D Clarke) will face as she carries her weariness at cleaning up the home of the Gellmans for little pay, very little gratitude, and a clear cut depression that makes her life something she is simply trying to survive. Clarke was so perfect in carrying the spiritual exhaustion of knowing that prejudice has placed you in what can feel like an eternal position of unthanked service. Frankly, I cried. I thought of my own family, and how all of them are your maids, electricians, truck drivers, and how they never dreamed of being in such roles but inherited them as many Latinos do. For them, work is what you do so your kids can live, and Caroline’s pain of feeling like a dead woman working is so palpable, you want to SAVE HER.
It is a universal feeling to, at least once, detest your life, but for many, particularly black people, there is an entire system that is built to assure you do not escape that feeling. It embeds in you so that you never attain relief nor fully connect with anyone, emotionally, like Caroline with her children. Does she love them? Yes. Can she offer herself fully to them? No. Yet, it is not work that stops her as much as her traumas, and the fear the hopes of Emmie (Samantha Williams), Jackie (Alexander Bello), and Joe (Jayden Theophile) are just ticking bombs they have confused for tiny lights inside them. She looks at their fire to fight the South’s white supremacy as if they are trying to re-believe in Santa Claus; how could they fathom ending something so evil when, to a certain, degree it ended their father. Thus, Caroline’s and every potential joy she could have has been disrupted by white supremacy, and she knows her kids will fall victim to it.
Director Michael Longhurst perfectly juxtaposed the differences and similarities between systemic suffering and life, which would make book and lyricist Tony Kushner proud. As the Gellmans gather for Hannukah, while still mourning the loss of matriarch ,the family feels fractured between the past, present, and the facades of joy that drape them. Rose (Cassie Levy) ithe perky housewife whom is miserable because Stuart (John Cariani) is still mourning his first wife, and her step-son Noah (Adam Makké) is closer to Caroline, who hates him, than her: who wants to be loved by him. The dynamic between Makké’s Noah and Clarke’s Caroline is so good because it plays to a truth that, at times, we ignore: not every service person genuinely likes or wants to serve you. There is a “happy narrative” bound to the maid, perhaps, to protect more her boss than her because if she is happy …. then it could mean he is not just a “bad boss” but a bad person. This explains Rose’s protectiveness over her image, Stuart’s, aloofness over his maid’s discontent, and Noah’s genuine belief that Caroline loves him rather simply works for his dad. Add on that Rose’s dad, Mr. Stopnick (Chip Zien) claimed to be “frustrated” because black people do not unite under an economic cause, as everyone is poor, and, instead, try to play “victim” to everyone. His prejudice fuels the division between Caroline’s “underwater” world in Louisiana, and those who get to live above ground, despite their people’s systemic lashings.
Pain is a hard thing to understand, and might be why we all compete or even tell each other how to heal without being healed. This exceptional cast pushes audience’s to Sometimes, I wonder if people are more protective of their pain than their privilege seeing as most people have a concept that being suffered, automatically, means you are a good person. Yet, when your suffering is coded into the backbone of a society’s economy, it does not matter whether you are good or bad….. you will always be made to suffer. For Caroline, dignity is what you have when you can, morally, say you are a good person, despite all the bad you face from others, and, by the end of this musical, this ideology becomes her sole comfort. Buy Tickets Here!
PRESENTED AT
Studio 54
254 West 54th Street
(between Broadway and 8th Avenue)
