Saturday
September 7, 2024 
As an artist, Gus certainly has the right stuff. But, to his detriment, he also has the white stuff.
And that works against him as demonstrated in “White,” the Alice in Warpedland wonder of a play that colors the arts in a spiraling spectrum of questions as it examines pigment as politics and perception as a pernicious byproduct of bias and bigotry.
“White” — in which the white Gus, rejected for an exhibit, with hints of racism at play, hires a Black female actress as a beard for his bevy of work, whitewashing his own talent in the hope of getting approbation and applause, if not the credit, in a mission as misguided and masked as his efforts are — canvases a reaction to racism and the artless arrogance of the uninformed in the art world.
Beauty as only skin deep? The ugliness comes out in “White,” which is being produced by the Langhorne Players in Northampton Township. Opening night is Friday, and this comedy of colors, with playwright James Ijames’ juicy jabs at hypocrisy and histrionics, runs to Aug. 4.
Players producer and board member Ryan Lafferty has an eye for eye-openers, which “White” certainly is.
But then, he concedes, Langhorne Players has always had a serious mission, since opening in 1947, of presenting serious and socially conscious works.
“This is an enjoyable but unsettling play,” he says of “White,” part of Langhorne’s legacy of not settling for the tried and trite. It’s much in the sage and slightly seditious all-in-the-family style of Norman Lear, he contends, the late iconic TV producer who prodded the medium to be messy with its messages and not take the comfortable way out.
Lafferty feels comfortable with that sense of uneasiness. “We like to say we present plays worth talking about.”
Indeed, Langhorne has been the talk of the town over its lifetime of 77 seasons, with productions examining journalism myths and mistakes as in this past spring’s rendition of “Lifespan of a Fact”; man’s inhumanity to man in such past stagings of “Red” and “God of Carnage”; and birthing an intense look at marriage and maternity in “Rabbit Hole.”
“We don’t sweep hard-to-discuss issues under the rug,” preferring to uncover controversies with significance. “We want to engage.”
But are the Players wed to topics that might antagonize their audiences? Lafferty doesn’t laugh off their needs.
“I do talk to people, our audience, and reach out to them,” to discover their thoughts and opinions of what the Players present. “We will not do garish plays” or pieces that enrage for the sole purpose of outrageousness.
“Our patron is a thinking person, our guests...the community we serve has a high bar of expectations,”
Which can be complexing when contemplating what to serve up: “It is a delicate balance, a high-wire act.”
The net result is a growing respect for the company. But would it be correct to label the Players as politically incorrect for hiring a non-Black to helm what is arguably a Black theater piece? Would this production have been better served by a Black director than one (Bryan Hagelin) who is not? Such a question evokes the company’s quest as well as its credo and a quick retort from the producer: Being colorblind in recruiting company artists — such as the experienced, insightful and intuitive Hagelin — serves the arts best, says Lafferty.
Indeed, “White” provides a portrait of what the entire production company expects of itself, that life is made up of more than black-and-white issues, clogged with combustible shades of confusion. And the Players explore that complex collage of colors unerringly onstage.
“Absolutely,” says the producer.
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