The White Card review – a subtle debate about art and privilege

Charles is a property developer who has constructed personal prisons in Iowa. He's additionally an artwork collector. The work in his home aren't simply hung up; they're “curated”. It's as if the artwork has been incarcerated on his partitions.

But this man sees himself as one of many good guys. Claudia Rankine’s riveting play is like Yasmina Reza’s Artwork given political function. Charles is a white liberal who believes he's counterbalancing a historical past of racism by accumulating the work of black artists – amusingly rendered in written descriptions on the partitions of Debbie Duru’s stylish set.

Performed by Matthew Pidgeon in Natalie Ibu’s wonderful manufacturing, he has the suave assurance of a CEO but additionally a convincing air of even-handedness.

Which makes him all of the extra of an issue. It doesn’t take a lot to reveal the bounds of the white liberalism of his spouse, Virginia. Performed by Kate Copeland, she snaps underneath strain, blandly cheering on black icons similar to Serena Williams and Michelle Obama however recoiling within the face of actual racial battle. Blind to her personal benefits, she needs folks would simply get alongside.

Privilege on present … Estella Daniels, Kate Copeland, Matthew Pidgeon and Nick Blakeley in The White Card. Photograph: Wasi Daniju

Likewise, Nick Blakeley’s Eric, a white artwork seller, cares extra for superb wine than addressing the questions his merchandise raises.

So when an incredible Estella Daniels arrives as Charlotte, a celebrated black artist whose images reconstruct unseen moments of racial violence, she sees Charles as her most severe adversary. Exhibiting not rancour however a deep ethical sense, she chooses to take a look at him in the identical method he seems to be at her.

He doesn't prefer it. His privilege is not only in his wealth, it's in his very pores and skin; a pores and skin he takes without any consideration. It places him – and by implication, each white particular person within the viewers – on the centre of his personal universe. On this method, his championing of black artists seems to be much less like a progressive gesture than a fetishisation of lifeless black our bodies.

But Rankine’s is a delicate debate. Like their names, Charles and Charlotte are mirror pictures, every broken and outlined by their cultural expertise. Tense and well timed, The White Card factors fingers, but additionally factors the way in which to optimistic change.

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