Playwright: Bruce Graham. At: Northlight Theatre, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie. Tickets: 847-673-6300 or www.northlight.org; $25-$78. Runs through Feb. 28
There's a startling moment in White Guy on the Bus when playwright Bruce Graham essentially pulls the rug out from under the audience. The course of the drama shifts and the mood turns pessimistic as an unflattering mirror of U.S. race relations comes into view.
Now having its world premiere at Northlight Theatre, White Guy on the Bus starts out benignly enough as we're introduced to the wealthy Philadelphia married couple of Ray, a financial "numbers man" ( Francis Guinan ), and Roz, an inner-city school teacher ( Mary Beth Fisher ).
Ray and Roz socialize with their grown son, Christopher ( Jordan Brown ), and his new school teacher wife, Molly ( Amanda Drinkall ). But the conversations grow testy when topics turn to race as Roz challenges Molly on her decision to work with more privileged children, while Ray prods Christopher to work for his firm rather than pursing further education via a planned study of depictions of African-American men in advertising.
Interspersed between these family get-togethers are early scenes of friendly public transit conversations between Ray and a single mother in nursing school named Shatique ( Patrese D. McClain ). Ray sticks out as the titular and only white guy on the bus, but he and Shatique strike up a friendship as she shares details of her hand-to-mouth existence and her self-improvement goals.
So it's a shock when White Guy on the Bus transforms into a cold and calculated revenge thriller. If Graham's goal was to unsettle audiences by forcing them to question their own inherent views on racism and justice, he certainly succeeds in a blunt way in White Guy on the Bus.
Director BJ Jones has gathered together a superlative cast for White Guy on the Bus, and they're all able to turn their characters' heightened emotions and views on a dime. Guinan as Ray and McClain as Shatique in particular get to show off more explosive and indignant anger that is truly riveting, while the barbed sarcasm of Fisher as Roz is always sharp.
In terms of Jones' staging of White Guy on the Bus, I'm not sure if the visual approach is little more than functional in John Culbert's set that is largely a plush lawn framed by large shifting window frames. Unless the symbolic view is that things in America are run on the playing fields of wealthy people like Ray and Roz, it seems odd that everything takes place on grassy turf.
White Guy on the Bus certainly upsets audiences with its smart, if harsh, views on race relations. It also upends the typical setup of so many popular vigilante revenge film fantasies by showing a more likely outcome by the way the decks of justice are stacked in this country.