The Mixed Blood Theater’s production of Neighbors may offend you. It may unsettle you. But it won’t bore you. The titular neighbors are two families: the Pattersons and the Crows. Richard Patterson is an ambitious classics professor married to Jean, his intelligent but somewhat aimless wife. They’re a biracial couple (he’s black and she’s white) raising a willful teenage daughter, Melody. Richard is deeply troubled when the Crows, a family of black entertainers who style themselves as a minstrel troupe (complete with blackface that is never removed) move in next door. The Crows are loud, abrasive, and crude; everything that Richard detests. When Melody begins hanging out with young Jim Crow (yes, Jim Crow) and Jean starts to spend her lonely afternoons sharing tea with Zip Crow, a charming but brash dandy with a fondness for top hats), Richard fears that his neighbors will sabotage his family’s upward mobility.
Neighbors is one of the more disorienting plays I’ve seen. One minute, you’re watching an outrageously bawdy minstrel skit. The next, you’re watching a deeply hostile argument between husband and wife. Neighbors‘ bipolar tone mirrors America’s attitudes on race: we laugh when Chris Rock pokes fun at black stereotypes, but we become uncomfortable and a little defensive when forced to confront our own attitudes on race. The play is at its best when it forces us to squirm under the weight of our own assumptions and biases, right until the surprising ending.
Mixed Blood is making all of its mainstage performances available for free, so you have very little to lose in checking it out. Full disclosure: I serve on one of the theater’s advisory committees.
The neigbors.. Was very enlghting. very in your face stero types and racism.. Richard lost touch with his identity.. and his wife jean was under the impression that race did not matter… some of the scenes were extreme…
there was always a message in between the lines.. if you listened and watched closely enough… It’s a must see play…