The Frame

by Rebecca Gilman

A small college in New Hampshire, largely white in faculty and student body, is thrown into turmoil when a black student begins receiving threats and hate mail. The main character is the Dean of Students, who came to New Hampshire after working at a largely black institution in Chicago, so a lot of pressure falls on her to sort out the racial difficulties. Through the course of the play, she begins to come to terms with her own innate racism. Much of the play is quite good, sensitively handled, though it tends to end up as stereotyped as it tries not to be. It seems particularly odd that the black student who is so important to the play and so marginalized by the administration’s attempts to cover up the problem or ignore the reality of racism never appears on stage. The play tries to be controversial, but…isn’t.
Average