Abusing Their Power Because They Can
June 22, 2001, Friday
THEATER REVIEW; Abusing Their Power Because They Can
By BRUCE WEBER
The arrested man, whose name is Delroy, is so used to being brought in on
''sus'' -- suspicion of this or that -- that he laughs when he's picked up,
comments on the d´cor of an interview room he's never seen before and fences
casually with the two white officers who question him as though this were all
bogus business as usual.
The power of this well-made, unsubtle play survives even though police
procedural dramas on television have made the setting more than familiar. And
that is largely because of how it exposes an innate will to be powerfully
indecent among those who are given the opportunity.
That Delroy's wife died gruesomely, that he didn't even know she was dead
when he was brought in, that he is keening in agony through much of the play's
latter half -- none of this makes an impression on Karn (Harris Berlinsky), the
senior investigator, or his younger sidekick, Wilby (Jason Crowl), except that
they find means to exploit it. At one point Wilby explains to Delroy that he can
sympathize because he once lost a dog, a detail that returns later in the play
in even more grotesque fashion.
The cops in ''Sus'' are undeniably bigots, but Delroy (Jolie Garrett), a
large man with long braided hair who speaks in a Caribbean patois, is in many
ways an ordinary fellow, not particularly distinguished as a character and
really only incidentally black. The fact is that he is not unjustly brought in
for questioning; the initial evidence points to him as a suspect.
Written as Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government was empowered, with
the British economy suffering and immigration at a flood tide, Mr. Keeffe's play
is mostly political, an outcry against emerging fascism, not simple racism.
''You see, what this country needs is a strong government to sort out the
laws, bring order,'' Karn explains, sounding a lot like someone extolling the
virtues of Hitler or Mussolini. ''Sus,'' in fact, takes place on election night,
and Karn is giddy with excitement as Wilby delivers bulletins reporting that the
liberals in office will be dispatched, that taxpayers will no longer be
supporting immigrants ''on the dole'' and that the new Tory government will
support law and order and raise police salaries.
Mr. Keeffe's point has less to do with the villainy of the police than with
their sense that they've been given permission to indulge it. Mr. King's unfussy
production on a set by Robert Joel Schwartz that is nakedly bleak even by police
interrogation room standards is focused on allowing the officers to demean
themselves.
As Karn, Mr. Berlinsky belies a facade of James Mason-ish ´lan, with an oily
presumption of worldliness and superiority and the occasional outburst of
ignorant rage. Mr. Crowl is quite good in the role of a fascist youth, a dope
who is eager to exercise privilege of place yet must be obsequious to a
superior.
And Mr. Garrett, who initially uses a scampy smile and a swagger to deflect
the offensiveness of his tormentors, is bruisingly reduced to a victim. By the
end he is a carved-out shell, sagging as if his spine were jellied, an innocent
man who has been gravely punished and whose freedom has been compromised
forever.
That he ends up being treated with the crassest insensitivity, gleefully
humiliated and eventually beaten is testimony that racial profiling existed long
before we had a name for it. And the crisp current production by the Jean
Cocteau Repertory Theater, directed by Woodie King Jr., will remind most in the
audience of names like Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima. The show runs through
June 30 at the Bouwerie Lane Theater in the East Village.
SUS
By Barrie Keeffe; directed by Woodie King Jr.; sets
by Robert Joel Schwartz; costumes by Susan Soetaert; lighting by Izzy Einsidler;
fight direction by Joseph Travers; assistant director, Amy Wagner. Presented by
the Jean Cocteau Repertory, David Fuller, producing artistic director. At the
Bouwerie Lane Theater, 330 Bowery, at Bond Street, East Village.
WITH:
Jolie Garrett (Delroy), Harris Berlinsky (Karn) and Jason Crowl (Wilby).
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