Theatre in Review: Smart People (Second Stage)Does anyone in America escape the net of race? Not in Smart People: The characters in Lydia R. Diamond's new play, all of them members of the Harvard University community, keep coming up against the many ways -- both obvious and subtle, almost all of them unwelcome -- in which racial identity shapes their lives. Jackson Moore fought his way out of the ghetto and into medical school; he is now an intern in rotation, but family problems, especially a crack-addicted brother, are always lurking in the background. He has also been profiled by his supervisor as a troublemaker who constantly questions authority. Brian White, who is, yes, white, is a tenured neuropsychiatrist whose research has made him a political lightning rod à la Charles Rule, but for completely different reasons: He claims to have found evidence of a biological basis for racism. Ginny Yang is a Chinese-Japanese-American professor of psychology who focuses on how the self-perceptions of young Asian girls are shaped by their family cultures. (Speaking of mixed heritage, she describes herself as a "twoken," representing not one but two minorities.) She's all business, because, as she notes, having achieved tenure, she must do twice as well as her white colleagues in order to justify her appointment. Valerie Johnston, a recent graduate, is a budding actress who has disappointed her well-off parents by not opting for a more "professional" career. She finds herself stereotyped coming and going: She has to field the condescending questions of a journalist who questions the wisdom of casting her as Portia, Brutus' wife, in Julius Caesar, yet even some of her own relatives think she acts "too white." What's a body to do? In Smart People, they talk about it -- intelligently, and often sparklingly -- analyzing the problem from every possible angle. Some of it takes the form of pillow talk: Jackson and Valerie try dating each other, but their mutual attraction isn't nearly enough to bridge their cultural differences. Brian and Ginny go to bed, but their sexual relationship becomes just another extension of their nonstop sex-and-race argument. By the way, neither of these relationships can be honestly described as a love affair. Diamond's characters are too busy racking up debating points to get carried away by anything as frivolous as that. In any case, Diamond keeps finding new reasons to throw them together in different combinations, striking sparks that reframe the debate from scene to scene. Brian hires Valerie as an assistant to help him with his research, about which she quickly expresses serious reservations. Ginny keeps importuning Jackson, who runs a clinic in Chinatown, for access to his patients to further her research, but they keep talking past each other. And Brian and Jackson are basketball buddies who often spar intellectually in the changing room of their gym. As a chronicler of modern dating and scholarly manners, Diamond is nearly always amusingly on the money: "Are you Googling me? In front of me?" So Brian asks Ginny, who is doing that very thing. "I want to prove that all whites are racist," Brian announces. "Wow, that's kind of hot when a white guy says that," Ginny replies. Valerie, fed up with Jackson's constant criticism, says, "I told my girlfriends about you. There's some debate about whether you're a sociopath or just a horrible person." A major post-coital row between Ginny and Brian ends with her provocatively playing the role of a submissive Asian prostitute, leaving Brian both horrified and aroused. When not discussing sex, the characters have plenty of pointed things to say about race and class. Ginny declines to take part in the university diversity committees, saying, "I'm uncomfortable sharing my marginalization with other disgruntled marginalized people. It's not my job to make the institution behave properly." Valerie, in the emergency room for a minor injury, is treated by Jackson. "Do I get to see a doctor?" she asks, making the sort of mistake one expects of whites. Then again, Jackson wants to know who hit her, and she replies, "What does a black woman have to do to convince you guys that she hasn't been beaten?" Speaking of Valerie's day job, Jackson, ever concerned about the issue of representing race, says, "You don't think the housekeeping thing sets us back a little?" Valerie defensively argues that she needs to subsidize her acting career; he asks, "And your deft portrayal of Portia empowers our people...how?" Jackson also notes that Brian, whose tenure is in jeopardy, plays basketball with him because "you need your colleagues to see your black friend not offended by your weird work." He adds, "You know who else was into the mix of race, biology, and legislation? The Nazis." Not for nothing does Smart People unfold against the backdrop of the 2008 presidential campaign, ending in Obama's inauguration, an event that proves destabilizing to many of the characters' assumptions. Oddly, the strength of Smart People is also its weakness: Diamond is so busy giving her characters smart, scathing things to say that she never manages to establish a central conflict that binds the action together. She's brilliant at argument, less so at creating drama. Everyone bounces off everyone else like atoms in a collider, without producing a powerful reaction. If you're going to enjoy Smart People -- and there are many reasons to do so -- you'll have to look at it as a frequently stimulating symposium rather than a fully realized dramatic work. Still, under Kenny Leon's acute direction, all four cast members make strong impressions. Mahershala Ali's Jackson is alternately steely and full of charm; it's easy to see why Valerie is attracted to him, but when he rises up in fury against his supervisor ("You want to break me") he is a remarkably fearsome presence. Joshua Jackson captures Brian's intellectual drive and also the bewilderment he feels being marginalized for his findings; this is especially true when he breaks down in the middle of a presentation, denouncing his audience as hypocrites more worried about losing their funding than dealing realistically with his data. Anne Son's Ginny amuses in her ongoing battles with department store clerks (she is something of a shopaholic) and even more so when she is exposed as the only living American who knows nothing about the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. She is also capable of throwing a wild curveball into a fierce racial dispute between Brian and Jackson. ("I was just happy to sit over here in the corner with the Latinos, and some Middle Easterners and the handful of Native Americans left. I was just happy to sit here and watch your conversation about race.") Tessa Thompson is especially good in a sequence featuring Valerie in New Hampshire, campaigning for Obama, getting one door after another shut in her face, until she has to beat back the fury of an aggrieved Hillary supporter; she also deftly lays bare Valerie's frustration when she is made to act "ghetto" in an audition. (She thought she was there to read the role of the social worker.) Riccardo Hernandez's purposely neutral lecture-hall set is suitable to the occasion but it would be a little hard on the eyes without Zachary G. Borovay's silkscreened projections of various Boston/Cambridge neighborhoods and Jason Lyons' lighting, which constantly and cleverly reconfigures the space, often using geometric blocks of light to isolate the characters. Paul Tazewell's costumes add to each of the characters' individual profiles. Nevin Steinberg's sound design provides excellent reinforcement for Zane Mark's jazzy original music. Smart People provides such thought-provoking entertainment that it's too bad to report that at times it seems like a series of conversations in search of a play. This is a giant leap ahead of her last work, the enjoyable, but sometimes mundane, family drama Stick Fly. Sooner or later, she is going to harness her gift for lively, lacerating dialogue to a knotty human conflict -- at which point we'll just stand back and watch the fireworks. -- David Barbour 
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