SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION JOHN GUARE CRACK
One neighbor calls him, baselessly, a “fucking black crack addict.” Ouisa, still hypnotized by Paul’s charisma, struggles to force truth into his lies and make him the black messiah of her fantasies. The Kittredges and their neighbors need Paul to validate them-to prove to themselves how open-minded they are-but after he’s exposed, some switch flips and the negative stereotypes kick in. Paul masquerades as their Negro ideal-not surprisingly, a replica of a white overachiever-and when the truth comes out, they’re devastated to learn that their self-congratulatory racial tolerance is just as fraudulent as his subterfuge. Paul knows that the Kittredges and company will see him as a black dynamo and project positive stereotypes onto him-even the South African, who has seventy thousand workers in one of his mines. They call the police, but when the officer asks what Paul did, Flan can only say, “He made us dinner.”Ĭorey Hawkins, John Benjamin Hickey, Allison Janney, and Michael Siberry in Six Degrees of Separation. Then they discover that Paul has talked his way into their neighbors’ homes as well. The next morning, the couple discover Paul having sex with a male hustler and chase both men out. He makes dinner for everyone, and dazzles the South African, who eventually offers even more money for the Cézanne than Flan had hoped.
Paul’s wounds prove superficial, yet he charms the Kittredges into letting him stay the night by telling them that he’s Sidney Poitier’s son and promising them roles in his father’s upcoming film of the musical Cats. Paul knows the Kittredges’ children from Harvard, he says-armed with many supporting details-and has come upstairs specifically for their help. Suddenly, a black preppy, Paul (Corey Hawkins), bursts into the apartment. Guare’s stunning tale about a black gay con man who claims to be Sidney Poitier’s son so that he can share, briefly, the opulent (and blindingly white) lifestyle of a rich Upper East Side family still explodes with insights on American race relations, on wealth and ambition, and on the nature of truth and artifice.Īt the start of the play, art dealer Flanders “Flan” Kittredge (John Benjamin Hickey) and his wife Ouisa (Allison Janney) are about to entertain Geoffrey (Michael Siberry), a South African gold magnate they pray will cough up two million dollars for a painting by Cézanne. The second best evidence for the longevity of the piece can currently be found at the Barrymore Theatre: this near-perfect Broadway revival reveals a play that resonates brilliantly both as a core sample of 1990 and as damning evidence of what hasn’t changed in society since then. The 1990 play and its 1993 film version can take a big bite of the credit for spreading awareness of human connectedness in the days before the World Wide Web. The best evidence for the durability of John Guare’s tragicomic masterpiece Six Degrees of Separation is its title. Six Degrees of Separation, by John Guare, Barrymore Theatre, 243 West Forty-Seventh Street, New York City, through July 16, 2017 Corey Hawkins, Allison Janney, and John Benjamin Hickey in Six Degrees of Separation.
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