''Straight White Men'' is a 2014 American play by

Young Jean Lee Young Jean Lee is an American playwright, director, and filmmaker. She was the Artistic Director of Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, a not-for-profit theater company dedicated to producing her work. She has written and directed ten shows for Yo ...

. The play's 2018 production at the

Hayes Theater The Hayes Theater (formerly the Little Theatre, New York Times Hall, Winthrop Ames Theatre, and Helen Hayes Theatre) is a Broadway theater at 240 West 44th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Named for actress ...

made Lee the first

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...

woman to have a play produced on

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

Background

Much of ''Straight White Men'' was born out of a workshop Lee conducted with a group of women, people of color, and LGBTQ people. Lee was cognizant that the umbrella term "straight white man" represented the default "other" for marginalized groups, and so asked the workshop attendees what they thought of straight white men, and how they would prefer straight white men behave. After a lengthy discussion, the group decided the ideal straight white man was someone who was not aggressive, who was passive in

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...

spaces and overall did not interfere with their causes. Lee took the ideas and created a straight white male character that fit the workshop's description: this became the character of Matt in the finished play. When Lee brought the character back to the workshop, however, she was surprised to discover that despite fitting everything the group claimed would make him better, the group hated him. On further discussion, they realized the factors that would have made Matt the ideal straight white man had in fact turned him into a loser in their eyes. From there, Lee became interested in unpacking what the label "straight white man" actually meant, and the unrealistic expectations behind it.

Plot

The pre-show consists of "loud hip-hop with sexually explicit lyrics by female rappers." The pre-show and scene transitions are guided by Stagehand-In-Charge, who is "transgender or

gender nonconforming Gender variance or gender nonconformity is behavior or gender expression by an individual that does not match masculine or feminine gender norms. A gender-nonconforming person may be variant in their gender identity, being transgender or non-bina ...

." During the Christmas holidays, three brothers return to their family home in the

Midwestern United States The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

to keep their widowed father, Ed, company. Drew is a writer, Jake is a banker, and Matt, the oldest brother and a

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

graduate, has moved back in with Ed. The family begins to question the reason for Matt's lack of ambition, while Matt insists that he is content.

Productions

''Straight White Men'' opened

off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

at the

Public Theatre The Public Theater is a New York City arts organization founded as the Shakespeare Workshop in 1954 by Joseph Papp, with the intention of showcasing the works of up-and-coming playwrights and performers.Epstein, Helen. ''Joe Papp: An American Li ...

on November 7, 2014 and closed on December 14, 2014. The play was directed by the author, Young Jean Lee. The cast featured

Austin Pendleton Austin Campbell Pendleton (born March 27, 1940) is an American actor, playwright, theatre director, and instructor. He is known as a prolific character actor on the stage and screen who has appeared in films including ''Catch-22'' (1970); '' W ...

as "Ed", Pete Simpson, James Stanley, and Gary Wilmes. The play was produced by the

Steppenwolf Theatre Company Steppenwolf Theatre Company is a Chicago theatre company founded in 1974 by Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, and Gary Sinise in the Unitarian church on Half Day Road in Deerfield, Illinois and is now located in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood on ...

, Chicago, in February 2017 to March 26, 2017 in a revised and restaged version.Jones, Chris
" 'Straight White Men': Young Jean Lee asks audience, herself to see both sides"
''Chicago Tribune'', February 12, 2017 The

Marin Theatre Company The Marin Theatre Company (MTC) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and professional LORT D regional theater located in Mill Valley, California. Jasson Minadakis is the company's Artistic Director and Meredith Suttles its Managing Director / CEO. ...

produced the play in June and July 2018."To Close '17-'18 Season, Marin Theatre Co. Turns to 'Ever-Audacious' Lee's 'Straight White Men' – June 14-July 8"
''Enjoy Mill Valley'', June 8, 2018 The play made its

premiere for a limited run on June 29, 2018 in previews at the

Hayes Theatre The Hayes Theatre is a 111-seat theatre specialising in music theatre and cabaret in Potts Point, Sydney, Australia. It is named after the Australian performer Nancye Hayes. Hayes Theatre Co was established at the former Darlinghurst Theatre afte ...

, with the official opening July 23, running until September 9. Directed by

Anna D. Shapiro Anna Davida Shapiro (born March 10, 1966) is an American theater director, was the artistic director of the Steppenwolf Theater Company, and a professor at Northwestern University. Throughout her career, she has directed both the Steppenwolf The ...

, the cast featured

Armie Hammer Armand Douglas Hammer (born August 28, 1986) is an American actor. Hammer began his acting career with guest appearances in several television series. His first leading role was as Billy Graham in the 2008 film '' Billy: The Early Years'', and ...

as Drew,

Josh Charles Joshua Aaron Charles (born September 15, 1971) is an American actor. He is best known for the roles of Dan Rydell on '' Sports Night; '' Will Gardner on ''The Good Wife'', which earned him two Primetime Emmy Award nominations; and his early wo ...

as Jake, Paul Schneider as Matt,

Kate Bornstein Katherine Vandam Bornstein (born March 15, 1948) is an American author, playwright, performance artist, actor, and gender theorist. In 1986, Bornstein started identifiying as gender non-conforming and has stated "I don't call myself a woman, ''and ...

and

Ty Defoe Ty Defoe is an Ojibwe and Oneida performance artist, activist, and writer living in New York. Defoe grew up in Wisconsin in the Ojibwe and Oneida communities of his parents. Defoe is two-spirit, a term used in many Native American nations to i ...

as the Stagehands-In-Charge, and Stephen Payne as Ed (

Tom Skerritt Thomas Roy Skerritt (born August 25, 1933) is an American actor who has appeared in over 40 films and more than 200 television episodes since 1962. He is known for his film roles in ''M*A*S*H'', ''Alien'', '' The Dead Zone'', ''Top Gun'', '' A R ...

left the show prior to opening and

Denis Arndt Denis Arndt (born November 23, 1939) is an American actor, best known for his starring role as Alex Priest in the play ''Heisenberg'' for which he earned a 2017 Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play. Life and career Denis Arndt served ...

left during previews).

Reception

The Broadway production received mixed-to-positive reviews from New York theater critics. The main source of criticism was that the piece was not as confrontational as Lee's other works, with ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' critic

Hilton Als Hilton Als (born 1960) is an American writer and theater critic. He is a teaching professor at the University of California, Berkeley, an associate professor of writing at Columbia University and a staff writer and theater critic for ''The New Yor ...

writing "not only does it not exhibit any of the humor, recklessness, and passion of Lee's previous work; it refutes those things." Others praised it on the basis of the same reasoning, with Matthew Wexler writing for ''The Broadway Blog'' that Lee intentionally makes the production "a calculated portrait." Jesse Green, writing for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', compared the Broadway production under Shapiro's direction unfavorably to the 2014 production at the Public directed by Lee herself. Green noted that the Off-Broadway production "was shaggier and, paradoxically, more coherent," but overall received the play positively and concluded that the play "is still an exceedingly odd — and thus welcome — presence on Broadway. It remains undeniably powerful, especially when Mr. Schneider, excellent as the forlorn and heartbreaking Matt, tries to make his family understand something he can barely articulate to himself."

References

{{reflist 2014 plays American plays Christmas plays Plays set in the United States Works about White Americans