Theater tackles racism in spring production

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by Lauren Krupar

Hudson Hub-Times
Associate Editor

For some, race is a four-letter word best left handled with a 10-foot pole. But The Hudson Players tackle it with their current production of "Spinning Into Butter," a controversial tale written by Rebecca Gilman and first produced in Chicago in 1999.

The thought-provoking plot is as simple as it is common -- a black student at a predominately white university begins receiving racist notes tacked to his dorm room door. While staff members host ineffectual forums to discuss latent racism, the situation escalates at this elite academy as a rock is thrown through the student's window.

The notes grow more derogatory as the story unfolds until the play ultimately focuses not on who is writing the notes, but the fact that anyone could have.

In what has been called the play's most controversial scenes, the college's dean of students -- a white woman who previously worked a predominately black university -- reveals her fear of black men, listing them as the people she least wants to sit next on a bus. In calling blacks scary, lazy and repeatedly criticizing their hair, she not only reveals the ugliness inside, but exposes the hypocrisy of those around her who profess their own open-mindedness and political correctness.

Unlike other productions of his play, Hudson Players does not discuss the show with an ending forum, leaving audience members consider the ramifications themselves. In Hudson, a town with a