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Kendall Driffin and Susan Kulp in The Niceties.
Janine, a professor, has some feedback for her student, Zoe. “I’m glad you brought this in early. I can see you’ve done an impressive amount of work on it,” Janine says.
“Yeah, well. I tend to get a little intense about fulfilling requirements,” Zoe says. The tone in the room is still friendly, but something is changing.
“I wish you hadn’t plowed ahead like this — written the full draft without getting comments on the thesis,” Janine says. “I was just excited to lay out the ideas,” Zoe says.
“I’m afraid you’re in for quite a substantial rewrite,” Janine says. “Your argument is … fundamentally unsound.” She turns to the first page. “‘A successful American Revolution was only possible because of the existence of slavery,’” she reads out loud.
Now the mood has changed completely, though Janine doesn’t fully realize it. “Yes,” Zoe said. Janine challenges her, as only a professor at an elite college can: “Yes?” she says, the verbal equivalent. But Zoe, suddenly, is having no more of it. “Yes,” she says.
The ensuing battle of minds and wills in Eleanor Burgess’s The Niceties — produced by Collective Consciousness Theatre and running through Nov. 24 — has all the usual quality hallmarks of a CCT production. What’s changed is a shift in location to, and a collaboration with, Bregamos Community Theatre.
Collective Consciousness Theatre moved its full production out of its own space and into Bregamos mainly because their space has an “accessibility issue,” said Jenny Nelson, associate artistic director at CCT. “If we are going to be a completely inclusive theater, the lack of an elevator, having only stairs,” is an obstacle to that. Bregamos Community Theatre is “just a stone’s throw away,” in the same complex of buildings. “We’re neighbors. We love to support each other,” and “it felt so easy for people to come around the corner from where they know.” And “we want as many people as possible to see this play.”
CCT had done the one-man show Black Book at Bregamos in the spring and “it was such a great experience,” Nelson said. “We love working with Raf” — Rafael Ramos, who runs Bregamos. “There’s such cultural significance to this space. It’s like a magnet for artists and community members.” An additional benefit: “we can definitely expand the house here as well.”
CCT still has its own space in Erector Square, where it ran rehearsals for The Niceties right up until last week; having the set at Bregamos allowed set designers Jamie Burnett and David Sepulveda to create the set — reusing some parts of the set left from Legacy Theatre’s recent production of Dracula that was also staged at Bregamos.
“We’ve always been connected with the other arts organizations” in New Haven, Nelson said, “and we’re so lucky in New Haven to have so many. I think more and more we’re realizing that we’re better together than apart. We only strengthen each other. We’re not in competition with each other, and it only benefits us, to connect artistically, to be able to serve a larger community.”
“It seems to be happening more and more, and I think you’re going to see even more,” Nelson said. “We all need to come together as arts organizations and work together for the community.”
“This play, like every play we pick, we hope people will walk out having questions that don’t have easy answers.” Especially after this election, “this play feels more urgent than ever. Our hope is that, in this expanded space, we can come here and be unified. We don’t have to agree, but we can be together.”
Words like urgent and disagreement apply nicely to Eleanor Burgess’s The Niceties, directed by Jenny Nelson. This two-actor pressure cooker set in 2016 centers on Zoe (Kendall Driffin) and Janine (Susan Kulp), a student and professor, respectively, at an elite liberal arts university of the sort that dot New England in general and certain southern Connecticut cities in particular.
Zoe is taking a class from Janine focusing on American history, and is there to get feedback on a paper she’s writing. Janine has some comments that begin with small details but slowly balloon outward to what feels like a criticism of the entire paper, from its method of research to its premise. Janine thinks Zoe is a promising student but that her work, well, needs work. Zoe demurs; she already spent a lot of time on the paper and doesn’t have more hours to revise, as she’s organizing a few protests on campus and elsewhere. That’s when Janine questions how serious Zoe is as a student. Which is when Zoe, whose patience has worn thin, questions how serious Janine is as a professor.
What follows is a cage match of a conversation that encompasses everything from generational political differences to racial tensions in academia to the extremely fraught questions of how we understand history and who gets to tell it. We watch, helplessly, as the discussion between them moves from antagonism to hostility, until both of them take actions that can’t be reversed, and as the second act shows, dramatically affect both of their lives.
Burgess’s whip-smart play captures all too accurately the tone so many political conversations took in 2016 and to some extent have not relinquished. Aiding that script are fully committed performances from Driffin and Kulp, who excel in ramping up the tension and showing us, by degrees, how smiles that start off genuine become more pained, and voices that start off warm become more strained, until the veneer wears off completely. Under Nelson’s direction, the play rips along as the stakes rise. By the end of the play, Zoe’s and Janine’s arguments may have run their courses. But the questions for the audience remain: can we honestly address the injustices of the past without laying waste to the present? Can we do better than we’ve done before? Do we have any other choice but to try?
Collective Consciousness Theatre’s production of The Niceties runs at Bregamos Community Theatre, 491 Blatchey Ave., through Nov. 24. Visit CCT’s website for tickets and more information.