Fairview

In Act II, the first act restarts as the voices of four unseen white spectators are heard, literally speaking over the now-muted voices onstage. Although the playwright does not explicitly mention their race throughout the second act, their whiteness is prominently implied in their entitled tones, misconceptions of race, and mischaracterizations of Otherness. Ironically, they immerse themselves in a conversation about race—particularly various Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) identities—while largely ignoring the Black people onstage whose performance they have paid to watch. Thus, even the first moments of Act II critique the innate indifference of The Voyeuristic White Gaze, for the speakers are far more interested in their prejudice-laced arguments than in the production unfolding before them. The crux of Jimbo’s question—“If you could choose to be a different race, what race would you be?” (32)—and his pride in asking it also reflects the group’s inherent racism, as does the ensuing conversation, which quickly escalates as he poses the same query to the other three speakers. Their uncritical discussion of race reflects a careless, unthinking attitude that is meant to expose and critique the type of smug, cavalier conversation about race that would only take place in a private scene comprised only of other white people. In this controversial exchange, Jimbo offhandedly turns racial identity into a thought experiment, demonstrating his disconnect from the life-or-death stakes that often accompany racial identity. Even with the lack of sensitivity and nuance that the speakers show while talking about this complex issue, Suze’s frequent protestations imply that none of the four would ever admit to being racist if they were so accused.

By taking a step back from the play onstage and focusing instead on these four speakers who represent white audience members, Drury engages in a key example of Metatheatricality as a Metaphor for the Performance of Race. In their role as audience members, these speakers acknowledge and demonstrate the fact that the play is a play and the Frasiers are fictional characters. With this shift in perspective, Drury recalibrates the narrative’s focus to center and prioritize the voices of the four spectators, who are portrayed as being theoretically more “real.” Combined with the fact that the dialogue of the Black characters onstage is muted, this stylistic choice creates a deeply biting critique of the fact that white commentary and misconceptions often silence Black voices in real-life situations as well.

It is also important to note that although the third act will completely shatter the line between the theatrical and the metatheatrical, Act II still maintains the boundary between audience and performance. However, the relationship between the onstage actors and the spectator characters is further complicated and triangulated by the real-life audience viewing the entire production. While the characters onstage perform their Blackness in ways that the four spectators either appreciate or criticize, the four white spectators also perform their whiteness by treating whiteness as the default race. At the heart of Jimbo’s question is the notion that race is something that can be donned like a costume on top of their own existing selves. As Mack muses, “Would I want to choose a race that is more like who I actually am? OR would I want to choose a race that is totally different from who I am? To like, try something new” (41). The very wording of these questions implies the character’s false impression that race is somehow separate from personal identity.

Collectively, these four speakers represent The Voyeuristic White Gaze, which often stands as a silent, invisible, and punitive force; however, by using this format, Drury renders the white gaze suddenly conspicuous. Without thought or effort, the speakers construct the shallowest stereotypes of their chosen races and also of the Black family onstage. They barely pay attention to the play aside from making the most superficial comments that either offer a sense of misplaced approval or reinscribe ill-fitting stereotypes. For example, they openly enjoy the sight of the Black characters dancing, and as they impose the stereotype of an abusive, controlling Black man onto the character of Dayton, their tone takes on a mean sense of relish. In Act I, the real-life audience itself serves as the white gaze and experiences the performance as a silent watcher. However, in Act II, the real-life audience must view the narrative from the first act and the continuing narrative through the voyeuristic eyes of the four white spectators. With the onstage actors literally silenced, Drury forces the real-life audience to focus on the watchers, rendering the Black performers into nothing but quiet background noise. Because the four spectators’ conversation about race is also designed to be offensive, their dialogue pushes real-life audience members to identify their own place amongst the foursome. This new emphasis on the existing plot elements is designed to force a sudden introspection, for by invoking four spectators who embody different aspects of racism, Drury uses Act II to urge white audience members to identify the problematic and racist aspects of themselves that may only appear when they are alone with other white people or when they consider their private thoughts.

Onstage, the action continues past the point at the end of Act I, when Beverly faints. From this moment, the audience is forced to divide their attention between the new action occurring in the play and the ongoing commentary of the four watchers. As the influence of the four spectators seeps into the play, the action onstage subtly shifts in response, deliberately mixing Authenticity, Appearances, and Reality Checks. For example, because the white spectators have expressed their enjoyment for moments of dancing, the Black characters dance more and more often, and the metatheatrical tone of the play uses this irony to wordlessly critique the stereotype that dancing is essential to Black culture. By the end of the act, the characters’ dancing is excessive and borders on absurdity. Significantly, the food, which began in Act I with real carrots, now becomes a banquet of fake food, and as the Black characters pile the table with it, smiling and dancing, the food items become stranger and less real. Thus, just as real Black bodies are made to perform the shallowness of stereotypes and are not even allowed real sustenance, Act II of the play deliberately confuses authenticity with appearances. In Act I, Keisha expresses authentic joy as she dances with her mother and her aunt, happy about her bright future and grateful to be with these two women she loves, but by contrast, the performance of joy at the end of Act II is nonsensical and almost farcical, for as the characters smile and dance, piling up food, the tableau is rendered fake and shallow. Thus, Drury implies that the intrusive presence of white voices—and white, racist perceptions—has poisoned the authenticity of the original Act I narrative.

Further social critiques are revealed when Suze expresses discomfort with the conversation about race and Jimbo calls her a “good little liberal” (38), using “liberal” as an epithet to describe a philosophy that encompasses plenty of outrage but little action. The use of “liberal” as an insult situates the play in a uniquely American environment, for although the United States is far from the only country in which racism runs rampant, the enormously ethnically and racially diverse population makes racism an integral part of the national conversation. Thus, Drury actively addresses the fact that racism is baked into the infrastructure of American history and identity. Bets, who comes to the conversation as a European immigrant from an unidentified country, complains about the American need to talk about racism incessantly, and her misunderstanding of racism in the United States shows that the conversation itself is also uniquely American. As the Black family performs onstage before the four white spectators who are barely paying attention, this tableau serves as a metaphor for racial relations in the United States. Because Suze, Jimbo, and Mack (the Americans) cavalierly believe that they could be better at being Black, Latinx, or Asian than those who are already living in those bodies, they fail to listen to BIPOC voices that are already raised. At the end of the act, Jimbo’s ranting monologue about seeing his life as a movie in which he is the filmmaker rather than the star devolves into an aggressive demand to be heard. In this moment, the angry white man deliberately shouts over Black voices because he can only see himself as the main character, even if he does admit to being the villain of the piece. Thus, once again, Drury invokes Metatheatricality as a Metaphor for the Performance of Race.