Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company “The Shipment”
Posted by: Camela Raymond
To anyone consulting this blog for advice about what to see: Run, don’t walk, to see The Shipment (last chance is tonight). In less capable hands, the concept could have been disastrous–a Korean-American playwright writing a play about African-American identity. But Young Jean Lee created a work that’s at once highly intelligent, wickedly funny, deeply provocative, gorgeously crafted, and intellectually and emotionally profound. The performances are also superb. Rarely is theater of this quality seen in Portland. (Maybe I’ll write more later, but the point of this post is just to say ‘See it!’)
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I totally agree. The Shipment was incredible.
I wasn’t able to see it (unfortunate since it was at PCS where I work), but I wonder if the head-spinning, provocative reaction is partially due to our uniquely-progressive it’s-all-good, Portland-liberal bearing. As a city, we’ve delved so little into racially or culturally-charged work and have not really had to hurdle over identity politic-driven art like other big (more integrated) cities, of comparable size. Was the work so solid or did the subversion (authenticating our liberal feelings about race/culture/class) merely titillate? He asks rhetorically.
An overheard assessment piqued my interest, post-facto: “It has a big ‘gotcha’ that got me, so at the time I liked it. It was also rigorous and well performed and fun…but afterward it felt thin. . . for all her desires to push buttons, I think that if you’re a white person who’s done a little more thinking than your average NPR listener, this will not seem so transgressive.”