The two acts of Bruce Norris’ celebrated Clybourne Park (winner of a Tony, a Pulitzer and the Olivier award for best new play in London) take place in one house, but 50 years apart. In 1959, a white family sends up the rhetorical barricades as a black family announces its desire to move into a predominantly white neighborhood. In 2009, a black family fields an offer from a white family, who wants to tear down the house in what’s become a gentrified neighborhood. Norris has written about tough social issues before, but this satire cuts deep. As The New Yorker put it, “He finds a way to allow the unsayable to be said, and the hidden to be seen.” It’s a play as necessary in the post-Obama election era as Raisin in the Sun was to the late 1950s. Mark Clements directs.
➞ Clybourne Park (through Feb. 24). Milwaukee Repertory Theater. Quadracci Powerhouse Theater. 108 E. Wells St., 414-224-9490, milwaukeerep.com.
