About the Play:

Race is a full-length drama by David Mamet. Three attorneys, two black and one white, are preparing to defend a wealthy white executive charged with the rape of a black woman. The evidence raises questions about the accused's firsthand account. How far will they go in defense of their client and the pursuit of actual justice? Race examines how truth is not always the goal when it comes to the legal system and the biases within. In fact, truth can be disruptive.

Race explores the tension between perception and intent when a law firm of three attorneys, two black and one white, defend a white man charged with the sexual assault of a black woman. Having worked side by side for 20 years at a flourishing law office, criminal attorneys Henry Brown and Jack Lawson have developed a solid professional relationship. But when Charles Strickland, a wealthy businessman, approaches Lawson and Brown to defend him against charges of raping a black woman, tensions begin to develop as the case unfolds. New to the firm, Susan, a young black attorney, is brought in to assist. The businessman maintains it was consensual and part of an ongoing relationship (outside his own marriage). But as the three begin to study the evidence, they realize that nothing is as simple as it originally appeared. Despite the strength of their relationship, it soon becomes clear that Brown and Lawson cannot escape their own innate prejudices. Race turns the spotlight on what we think but can't say, dangerous truths are revealed, and no punches are pulled, all culminating in a plot-twisting surprise ending.

Race premiered in 2009 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway in New York City and featured James Spader, David Alan Grier, Kerry Washington, and Richard Thomas. It received its UK premiere in 2013 at the Hampstead Theatre in London and its Los Angeles premiere in 2014 at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. The play has been performed in regional, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 1 female, 3 male

What people say:

"Scapel-edged intelligence! Race is an examination of cultural conscience and paranoia, and a topical detective story." — The New York Times

"Mamet is most concerned with the power and treachery of language: a line of dialogue vital to the prosecution case is cynically rewritten by the defense. Mamet's larger contention is that attempts to create a more equal and tolerant society have made race an unsayable word... brilliantly contrives here a moment in which the single most taboo sexual expletive is ignored by an audience which then gasps at the word 'black'... Mamet remains American theatre's most urgent five-letter word." — The Guardian

"Intellectually salacious ... Gripping ... rapid-fire Mametian style ... Deep in its gut, Mamet's new play argues, everything in America – and this play throws sex, rape, the law, employment and relationships into its 90 minutes of stage wrangling – is still about race." — Chicago Tribune

"[Mamet's] exhilarating epigrammatic style broadcasts the will to prevail." — New Yorker

"Mamet lets us see the way sensitivity to the most incendiary topic in our history, as Jack describes race, can breed better liars." — Los Angeles Times

"It's black against white, man versus woman in a typically blunt David Mamet straight-talker about the law and discrimination ... David Mamet doesn't mince his words in Race ... an engaging brew of wit, rage, and shifting sympathies." — The Independent

"During a typically provocative 90 minutes Mamet probes the self-conscious, slippery, hostile and patronising ways in which we so often discuss issues connected to race and racial politics." — Evening Standard

"An offbeat courtroom drama ... This twin-investigation structure is ingenious. And both inquiries are niftily calibrated to pivot on the issues of skin colour, sex and exploitation ... Mamet's taut, fraught, nervy dialogue bristles with shocking and hilarious truths about the legal process." — The Spectator

"Race is a play for anyone who finds the issue as complex as it is urgent." — The Miami Herald

About the Playwright:

David Mamet is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter as well as a director, novelist, poet, and essayist. He has written the screenplays for more than twenty films, including the Oscar-nominated The Verdict. His more than twenty plays include the Pulitzer Prizewinning Glengarry Glen Ross. His other awards include a Tony Award, an Academy Award, two OBIE Awards, two NYDCC Awards, and Outer Circle, Society of West End Theatre, and Dramatists Guild Hall-Warriner Awards.