Clybourne Park is the funniest play of the year

Its setting is the Chicago neighbourhood of the title — the location for A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry’s Fifties drama about race and housing.

In the first half, which takes place in 1959 and carries a distinct whiff of Mad Men, white couple Russ and Bev are moving out; the neighbours are scandalised to discover that they are selling to a black family. In the second, it’s 2009 and we’re in the same property, now dilapidated but the centre of ambitious redevelopment plans.

The second half feeds ingeniously off the traumas of the first. Robert Innes-Hopkins’s design makes the connection tangible. Language and legislation may have altered, but tensions persist, and so do toxic social clichés.

Yet Norris does a lot more than peddle the line that nothing has changed. His writing sparkles. He is subtle, and even elements that initially feel cartoonish are wickedly undercut.

Part of his skill lies in his refusal to see racism as blandly monolithic. He depicts it as complex and layered, manifesting itself in strikingly different ways. He’s adept, too, at making the past vivid while treating the present with an unusual degree of detachment. And the most nagging anxieties are not articulated; instead they are left to gnaw at the audience. 

In Dominic Cooke’s crisp production, Martin Freeman is a delight as pedantic Karl and Sophie Thompson is spot-on as robotic Bev. There’s excellent work from Steffan Rhodri and Sam Spruell, a nicely understated performance from Lucian Msamati, a punchy one from Lorna Brown, and a bright-eyed freshness from Sarah Goldberg.
Clybourne Park gets off to a sluggish start, the plot is a little too contrived, and the humour drawn from one character’s deafness leaves a somewhat sour taste. But that, you could say, is Norris’s gift: he is the poet laureate of discomfort, a startling and unsettling observer of miscommunication, and this is thrillingly provocative theatre.
Until October 2. Call the box office on 020 7565 5000.

Clybourne Park
Jerwood Theatre At The Royal Court
Sloane Square, SW1W 8AS