A Free Man of Color
If you subscribe to Lincoln Center Theater, you can purchase tickets for any of their shows at a considerable discount. With the reduced rate comes a built-in audience ensuring a run of several weeks. So it is with A Free Man of Color.
The new play by John Guare (The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation) is a play that never decides what it wants to be. In fact, it seems to be several plays in one. If it were not for the pedigree and credentials of its playwright (who incidentally is the co-editor of the Lincoln Center Theater Review), the play probably would have closed shortly after opening.
At first, the show resembles a French farce, written in rhyme. The main character, Pierre Cornet, (the hardworking Jeffrey Wright) is a black man who has purchased his own freedom and inherited the wealth of his white father. He is a renowned fop and lover, having seduced the wives of the powerful men of New Orleans. The year is 1801 and the United States is comprised of only 16 states. As political intrigue foments, Cornet tries to get information by pretending to be emasculated and mortally wounded in a duel. (Play I)
While downtown at another theater, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is coming to power, uptown in Lincoln Center, Thomas Jefferson (John McMartin) is negotiating a good price for the Louisiana Purchase. Eventually he sends Merriweather Lewis (Paul Dano) to investigate the tract of land to the west of the states. (Play 2)
There are the racial overtones that become extremely powerful in the second half of the play. Cornet is a slave owner himself, lording over his slave, Cupidon Murmur (well-played by Mos). In 1801, the races mix and mingle yet prejudice is always lurking near the surface.
Then there’s political commentary about the motives of the Founding Fathers. (Play 3).
There are some humorous moments, especially those involving Cornet's sexual prowess and Veonne Cox’s portrayal as a repressed scientist seeking the cure for yellow fever. Many of the actors play several roles and A Free Man offers a parade of historical figures of the 19th century including Napoleon, Jefferson and Clark.
The staging is innovative and the costuming is fun. However, the story is much too complicated. The juxtaposition of characters and stories isn't clever; it’s merely cluttered, complicated and muddled. Cornet is such a disagreeable self-serving character that when his personal slave betrays him for his own freedom, we feel no compassion. We aren’t even disturbed by the injustice.
Guare’s play is too ambitious and too wide reaching. Maybe that’s why it seemed interminably long. Thank goodness for subscription theater- it creates jobs.
