White on Black

It has been 143 years since the abolition of slavery and 44 years since the Civil Rights Act, yet race relations in this country are as thorny as ever. Playwright Tanya Barfield knows it, which is why she felt compelled to pen Blue Door, an ambitious and unsettling play about a middle-aged African American man who refuses to participate in the Million Man March in Washington, D.C., a decision that forces him, for the first time in his life, to grapple with his ancestral identity.

The story, told with two actors through song and fantastical dialogue, inverts many of the standard tropes about racism. And Emigrant Theater, a young company that produces work by new and emerging playwrights, knows that a play about the black male experience is a tricky thing to stage, especially for a white director.

But director Jessica Finney has no illusions. "I'm not blind to the fact that people might say that I'm a white woman directing a 'black play,' " says Finney. "I'd be ignorant to be oblivious to that—but there's something about being willing to say, with my eyes wide open, 'this isn't my life, but it's a story that should be told.' I feel grateful for the opportunity to facilitate its telling."

Emigrant Theater wrote a five-year doctrine, a missive that commits it to the undertaking of a "public forum with the aim of growing awareness around the issues that [new] plays concern." After 2011, states the document, the company will reevaluate its role in the Twin Cities theater community. These self-imposed guidelines appear to have raised the bar for the company. Blue Door is playing at the Guthrie's Dowling Studio, an indication that Emigrant's role in local theater is, for the moment, secure. Jan. 17-27. Guthrie Theater, Dowling Studio, 818 S. 2nd St., 612-377-2224