Straight white Americans are the worst. Especially but not exclusively straight white American men. How do I know? I saw a lot of theater in Chicago this year. Sure, you might glean the same conclusion from news stories (Harvey Weinstein, Roy Moore) or history books (slavery, genocide) or social media (@realDonaldTrump). But a play distills behavior in a way nothing else can. And the distillate left by a remarkable number of recent shows is the message that straight white Americans suck.
Over at American Theater Company, Will Davis (who happens to be white and transgender) spent much of his first season as artistic director subverting SWA hegemony by ignoring it: Jaclyn Backhaus’s Men on Boats had no male parts, anatomy-wise; William Inge’s Picnic played out in a gender-fluid universe, the actors seemingly cast according to the disposition of their hearts rather than the contents of their pants. It wasn’t until last month that Davis acknowledged SWA—or, more accurately, SWT (straight white Texan)—perfidy head-on with Welcome to Jesus, Janine Nabers’s tale of a small town full of murderous white football fans.
