Mini School Review: Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris

Title: Clybourne Park
Author: Bruce Norris
Format: Paperback, 210 pages
Pub. Date: Published 2011
Source: SIU Bookstore


Book Description:

CLYBOURNE PARK spans two generations fifty years apart. In 1959, Russ and Bev are selling their desirable two-bedroom at a bargain price, unknowingly bringing the first black family into the neighborhood (borrowing a plotline from Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun) and creating ripples of discontent among the cozy white residents of Clybourne Park. In 2009, the same property is being bought by a young white couple, whose plan to raze the house and start again is met with equal disapproval by the black residents of the soon-to-be-gentrified area. Are the issues festering beneath the floorboards actually the same, fifty years on? Bruce Norris's excruciatingly funny and squirm-inducing satire explores the fault line between race and property.

Review:

★★

I had to read this play in one of my American literature classes in college. It was my least favorite piece of literature of the semester.

The book is a sequel of sorts to Lorraine Hansberry's play "A Raisin in the Sun". For the record, that's not one of my favorite plays either. I know it's a classic, but I went into reading "Claybourne Park" without the expectations that other people who loved Raisin in the Sun did.

It's boring. I know that's the least helpful word to describe a book, but it's what it was. It was loud, full of people talking over each other but not really going anywhere. While this made it easy to read in class, it's really easy to struggle with set, the bigger plot, and even character descriptions because that's not really what the constant talking is about. The jokes (yes, there are some) aren't funny. The drama seems anticlimactic. The characters seem no different from characters I've seen before, which makes this book/play pretty forgettable. Like a show on TLC I don't want to watch: generic people yelling at each other

I understand the message and the point the play is trying to make, and I appreciate it. But when it comes to the actual piece, not for me. Maybe if you enjoyed "A Raisin in the Sun", or actually get to see this played out on stage, you'll have a better time with it than I did.