which opens this week at the New York Theatre Workshop, is “about” race would be to diminish the considerable scope of its ambition. It’s not that it’sis not about Irish-American Catholicism. But race—and racism—is just the water in which Harris’s characters swim in this forceful and wildly entertaining piece, which dazzles with its narrative power and the variety of its thematic and stylistic layers.
Slim, with long, braided hair and sculpturally elegant features, Harris exudes an almost preternatural poise and watchfulness, leavened by a playful sense of humor. On a Zoom call, she apologizes for the messy state of her apartment in Los Angeles, though it strikes me as how my place looks after a cleaning binge. It seems appropriate for a former child of the military, whose mother, after emigrating from Trinidad and Tobago, enlisted in the U.S.
In a nod to the play’s Attic roots, Harris has also created The Rowdy, a kind of Greek chorus of boisterous young folk weaving throughout the proceedings, inspired by a jukebox-challenge video that she saw on YouTube. As the play’s director, White auditioned dozens of young performers to find just the right mix. “The Rowdy is the dopest kind of incarnation of a theatrical ensemble I have ever seen in my life,” she says.
As White notes, Harris is nothing if not rigorous as a writer. But she is also bursting with so much theatrical invention that it borders on the profligate. She often describes her plays as stews with a wide variety of ingredients cooked together. Forshe turns to another culinary metaphor. “It’s like a really dense cake, and there are all these layers,” she says. “Some people will get just the icing and maybe a little bit of the upper crust——and that’s cool.