This is the bizarre moment a white woman stood up to tell the black writer of controversial Slave Play that his work is racist against white people.
The audience member was filmed shouting for several minutes at author Jeremy O. Harris and pointing her finger at him during a live Q&A on Broadway last Friday.
She accused the gay playwright of being ‘racist against white people’ during the heated exchange, telling him she ‘doesn’t want to hear that white people are the f***ing plague all the time’.
The woman said she has been raped, falsely arrested and had her children taken away, arguing: ‘How the f*** am I not a f***ing marginalized member of this goddamn society?’
Harris hit back, saying: ‘I never said you aren’t. I never once said that you as a white woman were not a marginalized person. But if you heard that in my play, I don’t know what to tell you. Perhaps read it or see it again.
‘This isn’t every white person. This play is about eight specific people and if you don’t see yourself up here, that’s great. You aren’t one of them. These are eight specific people that are in a play, which is a metaphor for our country.’
The play follows three interracial couples through sex therapy on a Southern plantation where they work out their issues through slavery role play.
A white woman, left, stood up to tell the black writer of the controversial Slave Play that his work is racist against white people. The audience member was filmed shouting for several minutes at author Jeremy O. Harris, right, and pointing her finger at him last Friday
The discussion was captured by other members of the audience, who posted their clips online. One was later retweeted by Harris.
Some of those watching can be heard booing and jeering as the exchange goes on.
Harris later confirmed the woman returned to the theater to demand a refund.
Slave Play opened on Broadway in October, sparking outrage over what some called its ‘blatantly offensive racial stereotypes’, ‘abuse’ of black people, and a jarring rape scene, that left some audience members ‘disgusted’.
The theme was inflammatory enough to prompt a Change.org for the play to be shut down, racking up more than 6,000 signatures. But it has received glowing reviews from critics at The New York Times, The Wrap and the Washington Post.
One eyewitness to Friday’s altercation, named only as Sydney, told Buzzfeed: ‘My jaw was on the floor. It was really wild, but in hindsight I’m not surprised at all that a white woman completely freaked out and and couldn’t handle the emotions she was feeling.
‘She just freaked out. The videos don’t do it justice. She went off on him. She was screaming at the top of her lungs. She could not handle her own guilt or responsibility in her own feelings, and she demanded that Jeremy help explain and handle her feelings.’
Harris told The Washington Post: ‘The plays shows the unconscious ways that white people take up space, that they don’t leave open for black people. This play doesn’t necessarily have to be about her but she did just create her own character.’
The production was written by playwright Jeremy O. Harris and follows three interracial couples going through slavery role play sex therapy on a plantation and critiques the intersection of race, sex, and history
Comedian Rae Sanni criticized playwright Harris for ‘using the black female body and rape/sexual trauma to work out his weird fixation on white romantic partners’
This Twitter user declared ‘We DO not need another slave movie nor slave play’
The New York Times praised the piece but acknowledged it could be ‘unsettling’
The Washington Post praised the piece as a ‘funny, scaling, walk along the boundary between black and white in America’. Writer Peter Marks said he left the show feeling that it ‘opened my eyes and ears more fully, and gratefully’
The work includes graphic opening sex scenes and explores how racial dynamics from the past affect relationships, identity, sexuality.
It was called ‘thoughtful mess’ by The New York Post and starts with three pornographic scenes.
Some critics have slammed the piece for making comedy out of the darkest parts of racism.
‘The play contains startling depictions of rape. It explores the fetishizing of domination and submission along racial lines. It disturbs our sense of propriety by making the horrific comical,’ TheaterMania’s Pete Heampstead said.
The play’s writer Harris says that he’s been criticized for his ‘boldness’ in the play, but argues it’s also what makes it unique.
He said members of the black community felt he had a ‘recklessness or boldness’ in putting the play ‘onstage in front of white people’.
Slave Play is playing at the Golden Theater on Broadway.