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The Respectful Prostitute
The Respectful Prostitute
She&Her Productions
Show Information:
“I’m a good person.”
That’s what we tell ourselves, right? And maybe, for some of us, it’s the truth. But anything can be the “truth” if you reeeeaaally believe it’s true – for you, anyway. So… is it true that you’re a good person? Who’s to say? There’s no right or wrong answer. It’s not simply black or white- but the characters in this play definitely are.
Written in 1946, Jean Paul Sartre’s The Respectful Prostitute blatantly addresses the suffocating racial tension, gender bias, sexual oppression, and stereotyping of the era. She&Her Productions’ adaptation has been lightly altered for modernity- yet, despite a 70-year passage of time, nothing has changed.
The first character we see is THE PROSTITUTE, who has just moved to Alabama. She’s found a new client and things are looking up… until THE NEGRO starts banging on her door. Picture him in your mind: he’s average in age, height, weight, and stature, and he’s wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a red hoodie. He’s in danger of a certain and gruesome death, or, at the very least, spending the rest of his life in prison for the crime of a white man; a crime she bore witness to- but she still won’t help him. She wants to think of herself as a good person, but unfortunately for her (and him), it’s our actions that define us, not our intentions.
So why do we turn the other way simply because we’re afraid of things we don’t understand? We hate to perceive ourselves as vulnerable, yet we often throw our hands to the sky and turn to our deity of choice as if we’re in control of absolutely nothing. We publicly voice our hatred of prejudice and bigotry, yet when our ‘racist friend’ says something awful, we awkwardly laugh it off to avoid conflict.
If we aren’t strong enough to stand up and say something, does that make us racist, too? An accessory to murder can still go to jail even though they didn’t kill anyone. Can we all say we’ve silenced every racially-insensitive blanket statement we’ve ever heard? Have you? Are you a racist? Aren’t we all at some point? Most of us like to think we aren’t. Maybe we should look in the mirror more often.
Venue
Unicorn Theatre – Jerome Stage
3828 Main Street
Kansas City, MO 64108
Show Times
July 22 – Saturday – 6:30pm
July 25 – Tuesday – 8:00pm
July 27 – Thursday – 9:30pm
July 29 – Saturday – 8:00pm
Category
Theatre
Runtime
60 Minutes
Rating
Mature Audience Only
Comments
4 responses to “The Respectful Prostitute”
I rate this show a perfect ten. The best of KC Fringe this summer. This is a powerful play in terms of both the story and the acting. The lead character is a prostitute, but that is not at all what the play is about. The play examines political corruption at it’s worse, the process of how a person can be brainwashed but that person struggles to do what is right, racism in the criminal justice system, and other issues. The lead actress in this show is worthy of a Tony Award for plays! Fringe plays are only sixty minutes. This play could easily be expanded to a full length play. I hope the playwright does so.
This is MUST SEE.
All 3 of us gave it excellent reviews and could not talk for awhile afterwards!
It is powerful and by far the best we’ve seen this year.
This show will leave you speechless. Very relevant and extremely powerful. Brought tears to me and my sister’s eyes. The acting was superb and the story itself was just incredible. My only criticism is that I actually read the original play that this is based on. Much of the dialogue is the same, i would’ve enjoyed a bigger commitment to making it current. An example would be in one scene facebook is mentioned which is evidence that this is current; in a final scene a lynch mob shows up at the door. Perhaps this was symbolic but i think the actual carrying of the rope should’ve been substituted for something else because some people instantly began murmuring that “this doesn’t happen nowadays” I wouldn’t speak in absolutes and say lynch mobs don’t form, but I don’t think they go from house to house or room to room in a city looking for a culprit. This is me picking nits because this show was amazing.
According to the NYT, 3 white teens attempted to lynch a young black boy (identified as biracial) in New Hampshire on August 28, 2017. It DOES happen nowadays.