Ashley Ray Took Apart ‘Slave Play’ Writer Jeremy O. Harris
For the past few days, critic and comedian Ashley Ray and Tony-nominated playwright Jeremy O. Harris have been clashing on Twitter about Harris’ controversial Slave Play—a satire involving rape, Mamie costumes, excessive use of the n-word and abusive visuals including a Black woman forced to eat cantaloupe off the ground that recently broke the record for the most Tony Award nominations in history (before going 0-for-12 in awards).
Having read Slave Play, which is about a group of interracial couples participating in “Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy” as a means of resolving the Black partners’ intimacy concerns, I haven’t been interested in seeing it performed. But the issue in Harris’ exchange with his critics has not been about whether or not the play is the “provocative,” “funny, scalding, walk along the boundary between black and white in America” mainstream critics saw it as, but about where a Black woman can express her genuine feelings about Slave Play and its portrayal of women without the playwright freaking out. The answer, clearly, is no.
Although both Harris and Ray identify as Black, in situations where gender and race are at the root of the production – intersectionality matters. It’s one thing for a Black man to make a play that involves race, but when he uses Black women as a source of sexual exploitation, they open themselves up to a different level of expectation, responsibility, and explanation.