Review: The White Card at Leeds Playhouse

Leeds Playhouse

Yvette Huddleston 4/5

American playwright Claudia Rankine's probing, urgent, thought-provoking play puts white privilege under the microscope and highlights the casual racism and many micro-aggressions faced by people of colour on a daily basis.

The setting is the well-appointed New York apartment of property developer and art collector Charles (Matthew Pidgeon) and his wife Virginia (Kate Copeland) who as the play opens are awaiting the arrival of young black artist Charlotte (Estella Daniels) from whom they wish to purchase an artwork to add to their already extensive collection of work by contemporary black artists. Their art dealer Eric (Nick Blakeley) warns them that she is very principled and has in the past refused to sell to collectors, so the couple are on their best behaviour. There is a hint at what is to come when Charles mentions he is thinking of inviting Charlotte to join the board of his foundation and Eric responds: “that would solve the diversity issue”.

Once Charlotte arrives, Charles and Virginia try various ways to prove they are her allies, but when she calmly questions some of their values, the mask of civility soon begins to slip and their increasingly defensive responses become patronising and condescending.

With the audience forced to look at themselves – literally at one point when during a slickly choreographed scene-change mirrors are turned on the rows of (mainly white) faces in the auditorium – it makes for discomfiting viewing at times. As it should be. Rankine’s incisive writing subtly, gradually, very skillfully slices away at the layers of respectability, calling to account lazy liberalism, to reveal the unsavoury truth beneath. While Charles and his ilk may profess to be inclusive and without bigotry or prejudice of any kind, their actions speak louder than words.

To June 4.