The black and white keys on Paul McCartney’s piano keyboard may play in perfect harmony  however it sure is not the case  with the black and white characters in American playwright Bruce Norris’s Pulitzer Prize winning drama, CLYBOURNE PARK. Instead, they live in a constant state of tension and power struggle

In Act 1, set in 1959 in Chicago, a property in a white neighbourhood is sold by a grieving family. At the eleventh hour, a neighbour, a leading citizen in the community, begs the man of the house not to sell. He has heard that the house is being bought by a black family and this just isn’t acceptable…

In Act 2, set some fifty years later, in the very same block, a descendant from the black family who took over the house is fighting her hardest to stop a white family from redeveloping the property as a white mansion, in what has become a black neighbourhood.

Norris’s play is as subtle as a sledgehammer. Tanya Goldberg’s production for the Ensemble Theatre, her first, generates plenty of heat.

Each of the cast play multiple roles. Favourite portrayals:- Richard Sydenham as the grieving, bitter father, Paula Arundell as the polite house-maid, seething inside, Briallen Clarke as a subservient, nerdy wife, and Nathan Lovejoy who plays the bigoted white male role frighteningly well.

Tobhiyah Feller’s set design expressively lands the audience in the middle of the action, – Act 1, a living room in disarray with a family on the move. Act 2- a construction zone, again everything in disarray, waiting for a fresh start.

The Ensemble season of CLYBOURNE PARK, finishing on April 19, is already a sell-out. The Company has announced two further dates at the Concourse at Chatswood on April 23 and 24.