There is much good to be said for Chad Deity. It gleefully pushes the boundaries of what theater can do and who it is made for. It is a more honest reflection of American culture than most of what gets produced in New York. It offers a bold, viscerally exciting examination of very difficult questions about how America chooses to classify and contain people of color. It's a serious play that doesn't take itself seriously, and so it's a lot of fun while having much more to say than any number of talky, issue-driven plays.
As for your larger framing about what gets produced globally, I think we have to be careful about presuming that the only reason a play doesn't travel is because of quality. Many plays are culturally specific in ways that make them less appealing to foreign audiences. |
