Review: On Theater: Racial tension plays out in two eras in Laguna Playhouse’s staging of ‘Clybourne Park’

How successful is “Clybourne Park” at blending racial tensions of 1959 and 2009 with a light, almost farcical touch? Well, the play by Bruce Norris won both a Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize earlier this decade.

It’s now on stage at the Laguna Playhouse, where director Matt August and a cast of seven excellent actors bring this nerve-touching saga to glorious life, carefully tempering its prickly situations with splashes of comical dialogue.

“Clybourne Park” is set in those two years, ’59 and ’09, in a fictional Chicago neighborhood created by Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play “A Raisin in the Sun,” with each actor performing two roles. It’s a highly impressive ensemble.

In the opening segment, a husband (JD Cullum) and wife (Heather Ayers) are preparing to sell their home, which has become unlivable after their son’s suicide therein. Conflict arises when it’s learned that the buyers are African American — or “colored,” to use the nomenclature of the period.

This brings a robust protest from a [white] community association activist (Christian Pedersen), who arrives with his deaf, heavily pregnant wife (Jennifer Cannon) and who proceeds to make himself a royal pain in Cullum’s rear end. The interaction between these two is the peak moment of the production.

Supporting the home’s sellers are a black couple (Jennifer Shelton and Jay Donnell) while a neighbor (Bryan Porter) attempts to make himself heard while avoiding confrontation.

The first act sets a high bar that the second finds difficult to reach. This period, 50 years later, finds the house in shambles, scarred with graffiti, and the subject of proposed improvements debated on by local housing association members.

Here, Pedersen and Cannon are still a couple and she’s still expecting. But there’s no limited speech here as Cannon roars her way through a dynamic performance. And Cullum, the focus of the first act, takes on a cameo role as a local handyman.

Both African Americans are more self-assured now but they still struggle to make themselves heard, especially Shelton’s character in her repeated struggles to express her point of view. Ayers and Porter are relegated to more background assignments.

The action plays out on D. Martyn Bookwalter’s elaborate setting, finely lit by Chris Rynne. Designs for both periods of costuming are well handled by Ann Closs-Farley.

Curiously, the Laguna program omits such key details as the time periods, matching actors to their characters or location of the action. Such information must be gathered later online.

“Clybourne Park” is a masterfully written play that will create laughter and deep thought, often simultaneously. It winds up the 97th season of the Laguna Playhouse.

If You Go

What: “Clybourne Park”

When: Through June 24; performance times vary

Where: Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach

Cost: $45 to $75

Information: (949) 497-2787 or lagunaplayhouse.com.

TOM TITUS reviews local theater.