(David Cote’s article appeared in Time Out New York.)
I doubt that George Zimmerman will ever see Clybourne Park on Broadway. The man who killed Trayvon Martin is busy defending himself against second-degree murder charges in Florida, and scoring tickets to the 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner is probably not high on his to-do list. Still, he might benefit from Bruce Norris’s acid, bracing diptypch about prejudice and neighborliness, perhaps even recognize the play’s society, corroded by what Freud called “the narcissism of small differences.” Clybourne Park is a powerful work about closed communities, exclusion and dehumanization of the other. Wartime atrocities slouch in the background. It’s also shockingly funny, and I suspect that at this point, Zimmerman could use a good laugh.