A very powerful play, "The Niceties..."

[NNadir]

My wife and I saw it last night at the McCarter Theater in Princeton NJ, performed by two brilliant actresses. It's one of the most thought provoking and timely pieces of theater I've seen in many, many, many years:

At an elite East Coast university, an ambitious young black student and her esteemed white professor meet to discuss a paper the college junior is writing about the American Revolution. They’re both liberal. They’re both women. They’re both brilliant. But very quickly, discussions of grammar and Google turn to race and reputation, and before they know it, they’re in dangerous territory neither of them had foreseen – and facing stunning implications that can’t be undone. Written with powerful truth and humor by Eleanor Burgess, this deeply resonant work is directed by Kimberly Senior (Disgraced). The Washington Post hails it as “a barnburner of a play,” adding that it’s “one of the best plays I’ve seen about who gets to tell the story of America, and how.”

The Niceties at the McCarter.

I personally left weeping, with great sympathy for both characters, despite their very bitter reaction to one another.

By the way, if you are in New Jersey and plan to go, there are NO bad seats in the Berlind Theater at the McCarter. Having gone there before, I knew that the $25 seats are just as good as the $80 seats, in fact in our case, 2nd row, stage right, they may have been the best seats in the house.

The playwright, a graduate of Yale, based the play on real events at Yale in 2015 apparently. It was set during the Clinton Trump election which, of course, the country lost.

If you can, see it.