The Balusters: Everything Changes So Fast

After his imaginative engines seemingly misfired in his tepid staging of Othello, Kenny Leon was in need of a knockout script and show to remind broadway why he is one of the best directors in the field of nuanced social status, bigotry and the farce behind public image. Thankfully, much like a gossip bomb at a committee meeting, Davids Lindsay Abaire of Kimberbly Akimbo and Rabbit Hole fame, gifted a match made in heaven with their production of The Balusters at Samuel Friedman Jr Theater. This is a theater I have written so many times about I can hardly find new experiences to discuss beyond the fact I was worried my performance may be stopped mid-way through due to an illness.

I digress, the Balusters is a delightful play about a Neighbordhood Association welcoming their newcomers Kyra (Played Anika Noni Rose with a splendid undertone of cautious venom despite wanting to fit in) suggests they install stop signs in a historic intersection. Meeting pushback from president of the association Elliot (Played by the iconic Richard Thomas with just the right cutting, superficial niceties to mask more unseemly motives), Kyra has to work around the various prejudices, hypocrisies, biases, misconceptions, misunderstandings, predilections and other words that imply these people do not all have a clear view of the situation in order to keep the neighborhood safe. The play is the pinnacle of modern theater with its ability to askew easy answers and attack both sides of the aisle from the bigotry of the more conservative association members causing uneeded tension and consequnces while also acknowledging the intolerance that can be displayed by progressives who jump on buzzword bandwagons without giving grace or checking their own assumptions. A powerful example of this is a moment between Melissa Han (A wonderfully snarky Jeena Yi) and Penny Buell (The always solid Marylouise Burke)where Penny had been mistaking the Korean Melissa for another Melissa in the town who is Pakistani with Melissa and the others chalking it up to Penny being old and possibly casual racism. Penny, upon realizing her error questions why no one corrected her because she hated the idea that she would insult someone and create such an awkward moment over a misunderstanding. Penny’s circumstances for how she came to this misunderstanding show the importance of looking deeper and Burke does a great job selling Pennys annoyance, temperament and indignation in this moment (though I don’t know if it tony award worthy). This ties back then to Elliot who many consider to be a well meaning historian of the town looking to presever the feel of the old timey town but his own implicit biases and inability to accept change of any sort lead him to making choices of ostracism and creating a community that he belives is equality but is actually a “I let you here” dynamic. Thomas plays Elliot with such punchable cunning as he uses every moment to make himself seem reasonable even when he is doing the very thing he accuses Kyra of doing to get her way calling her attempts “steam rolling” while he is just “counter punching”.

Ultimately the play comes ahead when Penny is hit by a car in the intersection which leads to the plays long observant character, Kyra’s house maid and former maid to Elliot, Luz Baccay (played by Maria Christina Oliveras with great comedic timing) to speak her mind. Revealing Elliots betrayal in selling her a house in the town because it would mean she was living in a nicer place than him despite being his maid. As said before, the play does mock more overt racisms such as characters assuming black teens are responsible for thefts and the concept of white liberal girl tears when their own biases are called out but it excellently shows the way implicit and unintentional bigotry cuts deeper and makes us question ourselves. Elliot is sympathetic for wishing to keep the town the same and the fear of life moving on as he comes to the end of his life but fails to see why change is necessary to allow others to fix the issues he can’t see or believes to not be a big deal. It would be impossible to discuss every microggression or white male victimhood or retrograde woke talk moment this play goes into but the beauty of it is that despite delivering equal punches to all sides and leaving nobody blameless or unbruised, the play never misses the true message. Every person in this show besides Luz is an affluent and well of individual regardless of identity, they all have the privileges to discuss minor inconveniences such as a whether or not the balusters of a disabled womans ramp match the vibe of the neighborhood. They fight small superficial battles and any attempt to fight a bigger battle is considered rocking he boat and needs to be stopped which in turn makes the audience question more our own inaction in life. What are times when we pretend we would stand up to injustice and then back down or forgive for the wrong reasons just to avoid problems?

Watching this play reminded me of my last paper on right wing theater and how to properly portray or crticize left ideals in theater as well as talking about bad faith criticism. Its plays like this that make me glad to see theater is still willing to remain in the center of political identity politics by mocking the superficial stuff and in turn showing what true progressivism, devoid of fair-weather ally-ship, does for a community in weeding out those who refuse to change or accept everyone. Its not always pretty but it is needed sometimes and we need to know when we can clean up our own messes instead of leaving it to others. The Balusters does this wonderfully with wit, stunning timing, an eclectic and diverse cast that shines a light to our own communities and encourages us to always look deeper into issues and find the true problems. Don’t let the right distract you with the worst examples of the left and don’t let those same left distract you with the superficial, fight the battles to ensure everyone has a chair at the table and be willing to get cunning.