Straight White Men is a 2014 American play by Young Jean Lee.
Productions
Much of Straight White Men was born out of a workshop Lee conducted with a group of women, people of color, and LGBTQ people where she raised the questions "What do you think of straight white men?" and "...what would you rather they be like?" After a lengthy discussion, the group decided the ideal straight white man was someone who was not aggressive, who was passive in social justice 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 the group hated him. On further discussion, the group realized they cared more that Matt was a loser than a straight white man. Straight White Men opened Off-Broadway at the Public Theatre 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 as "Ed", Pete Simpson, James Stanley, and Gary Wilmes. The play was produced by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago, in February 2017 to March 26, 2017 in a revised and restaged version. The Marin Theatre Company produced the play in June and July 2018. The play made its Broadway premiere for a limited run on June 29, 2018 in previews at the Hayes Theatre, with the official opening July 23. Directed by Anna D. Shapiro, the cast features Armie Hammer, Josh Charles, Kate Bornstein, Ty Defoe, Paul Schneider and Stephen Payne as Ed. The production closed September 9, 2018.
Plot
During the Christmas holidays, three brothers return to their family home in the Midwestern United States, to keep their widowed father Ed company.
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 critic Hilton Als 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, 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."
