The running motif in this year's presidential primary season is change: change in foreign policy, change in the economy and change in the attitude of government. If you stop by the Overture Center to take in the Madison Repertory Theatre's newest offering, Permanent Collection,"" you will see first-hand that change is hard. However, ""Permanent Collection"" does not involve political candidates vying for office, but museum administrators battling over wall space in a play more about politics and race than art.
""Permanent Collection"" was written by Thomas Gibbons and is based on actual events that occurred at a Philadelphia-area museum. The play deals with racial issues, but, while the conflict appears to be a literally black-and-white argument, the actual issue is much grayer.
""Permanent Collection's"" opening monologue strikes at the play's central issue of race, getting us inside the head of Sterling North, a black former bank president and newly minted museum director, played with power and confidence by Patrick Sims. North describes, with controlled rage, his commute to work that morning and how he was pulled over in his Jaguar for a DWB - ""driving while black."" The audience quickly learns North is a competent man and not adverse to conflict, and the monologue is a paradigm for the whole play.
North's antagonist in the play is the museum's head of education, Paul Barrow (Eric Slater), who takes a stand against North over how the museum's collection will be displayed. The museum's founder, Alfred Morris, dictated in his will that the museum could not change how the artwork was displayed. The museum's holding is rich in Impressionist painters like Matisse, Renoir and Cezanne, but it also has a great collection of African tribal artwork in storage; artwork North wants to display.
This question of what art will be shown - Renoir's ""naked white woman"" or the altarpiece of an African tribe - ignites the play's argument, as Barrow sees North's efforts as an attack on the founder's legacy and a challenge to virtues of the museum's Impressionist art. Both men are stubborn and their excessive rigidity causes this argument to escalate from an intra-museum argument over aesthetics to a community-wide issue over race relations, as the argument becomes front-page news.
The play is well-conceived by Gibbons, well-directed by Corley and well-acted by the entire cast from North's secretary, Kanika Weaver (Letecia Moore), to the ghost of the museum founder, Alfred Morris (Barry Abrams). Just when North or Barrow begins to make you comfortable with his point of view, another character tempers the argument with a different perspective.
The history of race in this country is long and mythically tangled, like a Gordian knot. It can come into the national dialogue when a senator from Illinois delivers a speech carefully addressing the myriad of complex and nuanced issues of race relations in this country, or it can be seen on the stage at the Overture Center this week. Perhaps, that same Illinois senator stopped by a Madison Repertory dress rehearsal during his recent campaigning through Madison - art for change.
