Theatre Review: Relevance Is The Most Exciting, Relevant Work Off- Broadway
One of THE BEST off-Broadway way shows gracing this current, theater season, Relevance is key to its name. Confronting the divisions between gender, race, and our own, personal relationships with truth, Relevance is 100 minutes of non-stop thought. Your mind reels as the past, present, and future of intellectualism confront each other in the form of Jayne Houdyshell’s Theresa Hanneck and Pascale Armand’s Msemaji Ukweli.
There is SO much to unpack about JC Lee’s masterwork, Relevance, that you could talk for days about this play. It starts off with a bang, or rather a Literature Convention that turns catastrophic when Theresa begins to feel threatened that her once revolutionary, feminist ideals are old. She is unavoidably comparing herself to the new, “it” intellectualist, Msemaji, whom has written an auto-biography, Grace And Virtue, to critical acclaim. The topic: how oppression, in the form of racism and poverty, helped her find her voice. It is, of course, a “refreshing” idea considering most minorities are told to present themselves according to their “brokenness” so as to receive opportunity. For her, the idea of presenting yourself according to your oppressions oddly feeds them, but, as Theresa points out, then how do you acknowledge and fight to socially heal them?
As Msemaji argues, from affirmative action to work-force diversity initiatives, people of color are often taught to display our lives like they are rough, terrible odysseys that with the charity of white, rich privilege can be, finally, eased. Thus, we find ourselves either begging for the charity of our oppressor or complaining about our chains to them. Of course, she has a wonderful point, BUT then what. Part of the intrigue in Lee’s writing and Liesl Tommy’s exciting directorial is that for all the ideas that are tossed, there is never a resolution or clear manifesto of action. Sometimes, the biggest failure of a “smart” person is that they knew how to analyze a situation but not embrace it. Theresa and Msemaji throw out massive, universal terms like, “justice”, “truth”, “equality”, “resistance”, and “act”, but how to transition these terms into actual progress stumps both of them, which may explain their clashing attraction/ obsession with each other.
Using your oppression as empowerment rather than fighting it seems rightfully implausible to Theresa, and is an argument that perturbs Theresa because she doubts Msemaji’s “harsh upbringing”. It is easy for someone to reject oppression, if they did not suffer it. Whether or not the ivy-league, boarding school bred Msemaji, actually struggled becomes an incessant investigation for Theresa, who believes you cannot speak on truth if you do not hold it for yourself. Jayne Houdyshell is a tour-de-force in giving Theresa a stubborn, moral dignity that dwindles into stout delusion. Rather then grow in thought, she is determined to make others think like her: from Richard Massur’s cool-headed, literary agent, David, to Molly Camp brisk, feisty convention moderator, Kelly Taylor. Yet, int this world, it is hard to fight fiction with fact.
To Msemaji, you have to fictionalize your story to have a say in reality. It was an astounding, profound point that struck me like, a bell. When you look back as history’s most dynamic figures, they seem legendary because their stories seem beyond human. Whether as agents of suffering or victims, from Hitler to MLK, those that have had the biggest impacts on persons also feel rather impersonal. You do not know them, yet their texts have defined your education and nations’ histories. Armand proves Msemaji’s point by giving her a charming ambition, a defiant demeanor, and an unwillingness to have her sparkling intelligence go unseen or unheard. In essence, she is the younger, blacker, and fresher version of Theresa, which is why the latter cannot handle it.
As a viewer, you are riveted by Houdyshell and Armand’s delivery of dialogue, and the feeling that you truly are in this convention of chaos and rich discussion. In the irony, tragedy, and humor of Theresa and Msemaji’s dynamics, Relevance shows that truths are defined by times, but not held by them.As humanity grows and opens itself to itself, new truths are discovered, grown, and even created, but who become its spokesperson is up for grabs. While Theresa wants to argue it is a game of merit, Relevance shows it could all boil down to luck. Relevance will play until March 11 at The Lucille Lortel Theatre. Located: 21 Christopher St, New York, NY 10014.
