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Between Riverside And Crazy Analysis

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As part of Dr. Natalie Tenner’s Theatre 111: Introduction to Theatre class, I was able to attend the February 23, 2016 performance of Between Riverside and Crazy, written by Stephen Adly Guirgis, which took place at Studio Theatre, 1501 14th Street NW Washington, DC 20005. The production was directed by Brian MacDevitt and starred Frankie R. Faison (Walter “Pops” Washington), Sean Carvajal (Oswaldo), Jasmin Tavarez (Lulu), Bryant Bentley (Junior), Emily Townley (Detective O’Connor), David Bishins (Lieutenant Caro), and Cristina Frias (Church Lady). The protagonist of Between Riverside and Crazy is the character of Walter “Pops” Washington and almost the entire play is set inside his present day rent-controlled apartment in New York City. The …show more content…

The play explores race, race relations, racism, discrimination, hate crimes, racial slurs, and racial tension in urban America. The play includes black, white, and Hispanic characters and the director used set and costume choices to give clear information about the differences in the social and economic status of those characters. The character of Walter is seen in his run down apartment almost exclusively wearing a tank top, pajama pants, and a bathrobe. Another black character is seen wearing a hat, baggy shorts, and a tank top to show his many tattoos. Walter’s son wears nice shirts but they are very loose fitting to match his baggy pants and he also wears a hat. The white characters in this play, Detective O’Connor and Lieutenant Caro, contrarily are seen wearing suits, dress shirts, ties, slacks, and nice jewelry. Detective O’Connor is also much more conservatively dressed than the other female characters who are Hispanic. These differences in costume choices most certainly relate to the theme of gentrification in the production with the under dressed and run down Walter character wanted out of his rent-controlled apartment by the city so more affluent, predominately white, conservative and well dressed characters can move in. The costume choices in this production were vastly different by race in order to highlight the disparity between races in our society

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