Keynote
A play about the imagined fault line between black and white lives by Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen: An American Lyric
Book Title
The White Card
Cover Image
- “The ideas discussed in The White Card are always compelling. . . . The lines of an urgent debate are clearly and thoroughly drawn.”—The Nation
Body
The White Card stages a conversation that is both informed and derailed by the black/white American drama. The scenes in this one-act play, for all the characters’ disagreements, stalemates, and seeming impasses, explore what happens if one is willing to stay in the room when it is painful to bear the pressure to listen and the obligation to respond.
—Claudia Rankine
Claudia Rankine’s first published play, The White Card, poses the essential question: Can American society progress if whiteness remains invisible?
Composed of two scenes, the play opens with a dinner party thrown by Virginia and Charles, an influential Manhattan couple, for the up-and-coming artist Charlotte. Their conversation about art and representations of race spirals toward the devastation of Virginia and Charles’s intentions. One year later, the second scene brings Charlotte and Charles into the artist’s studio, and their confrontation raises both the stakes and the questions of what—and who—is actually on display.
Rankine’s The White Card is a moving and revelatory distillation of racial divisions as experienced in the white spaces of the living room, the art gallery, the theater, and the imagination itself.
—Claudia Rankine
Claudia Rankine’s first published play, The White Card, poses the essential question: Can American society progress if whiteness remains invisible?
Composed of two scenes, the play opens with a dinner party thrown by Virginia and Charles, an influential Manhattan couple, for the up-and-coming artist Charlotte. Their conversation about art and representations of race spirals toward the devastation of Virginia and Charles’s intentions. One year later, the second scene brings Charlotte and Charles into the artist’s studio, and their confrontation raises both the stakes and the questions of what—and who—is actually on display.
Rankine’s The White Card is a moving and revelatory distillation of racial divisions as experienced in the white spaces of the living room, the art gallery, the theater, and the imagination itself.
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About the Author
Credit: Andrew Zuckerman / The Slowdown
Praise
- “Claudia Rankine’s . . . searing mind and sharp sense of humor give us much to debate, ponder, and love about the American race story when we need it most.”—Anna Deavere Smith
- “Claudia Rankine is a giant. . . . The White Card is a flash of brilliance. Read it and weep!”—Carrie Mae Weems
