SYNOPSIS
Moments before Jaclyn returns from a 5 day leave her boss, Dr. Williams, promotes the only other staff person to office manager with the expressed purpose of keeping tabs on Jaclyn. Dr. Williams wants to fire Jaclyn, but HR won’t let him without due cause, especially since she’s the only person of color in the office. When Jaclyn enters she’s quick to sense that she wasn’t missed since her plants are all withering and work has just been piling up on her desk. She also senses the growing tension between herself and the others, understanding that Ileen’s promotion is a superficial tactic to reinforce that the two office workers are not equal, which is only made worse since Ileen and the doctor had the morning meeting without Jaclyn. The doctor also accuses her of being late when she’s actually right on time. The New Group’s production even let’s the audience see Jaclyn waiting outside the office until it’s exactly time for her work day to begin. Not being in loop, Jaclyn was surprised when the patient Rose arrived for her appointment before the normal hours and in a fluster recited the rules and various check points that the elderly woman missed which was interpreted as rude by Ileen and Rose. Jaclyn proceeds to gaslight Ileen by rearranging things on her cluttered desk and she also openly discusses that she believes the doctor isn’t comfortable around Black people to Ileen, making her uncomfortable. Throughout the play Ileen becomes so frazzled that she brings a gun to work out of fear that Jaclyn might become violent despite no evidence that the thought had ever crossed the woman’s mind. That’s when she quits and confronts the doctor about manipulating her to get to Jaclyn. They’re talking loudly when we hear a toilet flush and it’s revealed that Jaclyn was at the office long before they arrived. She’s brought morning pastries and made the coffee and is extra kind to everyone while playing as if it’s common knowledge that Ileen was leaving the office to make room for the new hire, which was actually meant to be Jaclyn’s replacement. She even goes so far as to quietly ask if Ileen was really going to shoot her. The show ends with Rose’s third visit. The elderly woman doesn’t recognize Jaclyn with her sweet as honey façade and both the doctor and Ileen are left stupefied.
CHARACTERS
Dr. David Williams – Youngest Character, White
Ileen Van Meter – Visibly Older than Doctor, White
Jaclyn Spaulding – Middle Aged, Black
Rose Saunders – Elderly, White, Frail
POTENTIAL MONOLOGUES
Jaclyn tells lots of stories an is the only character with true monologue, but most of them are telling stories about characters that never appear and tend to be prejudiced against her so called Mexican neighbors. She does have an early monologue that could work with lines from the previous dialogue added in. It’s when she’s explaining that the doctor treats her differently from Ileen, as if the presence of a Black person threatens the freedom of White people. Her truer and moist poignant monologue is about her experience taking the bus everyday. There are young White businessmen that’ve made a game out of pointing out middle aged Black women on their way to work – women they have dubbed Rasheeda as a generic name. When Jaclyn gets off the bus she hears them call her Rasheeda number five.
PERSONAL THOUGHTS
This is my second time reading this play and still I’m left undecided on how I feel about it. While Jaclyn’s character comes off as sympathetic in the end, there’s several things that make her easy to dislike. In The New Group’s production she’s decidedly rude to Rose when she doesn’t check in at the proper table. When I read the text it seems more ambiguous to me, as if Jaclyn has gotten in trouble for letting patients do things out of order before and she was simply trying to do her job as instructed after starting her work day with a rude awakening. She then proceeds to tell Ileen about the Mexican family next door and how they don’t always speak “Mexican” but the 14-12 year old daughter was pregnant by the 25 year old cousin and eventually hangs herself in a very matter-of-fact manner the way I interpret the text. One of her complaints about the men calling her Rasheeda is that it’s a Muslim name and those people set off like bombs. While the doctor and Rose are clearly racist, Jaclyn is also undoubtedly bigoted herself. It’s not a cut and dry story about mean White people plotting to fire a dutiful Black woman that they’d otherwise get along with if it weren’t for race. It’s obvious Jaclyn’s being plotted against, but the text doesn’t exactly make us want to cheer for her either.
Then there’s Ileen’s character. In my second read though, I found myself questioning who’s narrative we were supposed to be following. Ileen is demure but polite until the end of the play and even then she’s just doing what her husband and sons are demanding of her. She points out herself to the doctor that firing Jaclyn would come off as racist, but denies anything against the doctor when Jaclyn asks. Jaclyn does gaslight Ileen about moving stuff on her desk, while at the same time having told her she was going to do it before ever touching anything. Jaclyn is clearly the more organized of the two, a skill you’d want in an office manager. Ileen plays neutral as much as she possibly can but while Jaclyn propels the action of the play, it’s Ileen that’s in every scene as we watch her grow more and more nervous around Jaclyn and Ileen is the one that brings us into our climax by bringing in a gun, though it’s never seen. Ultimately it’s Ileen that loses. The doctor and Jaclyn both keep their jobs while Ileen quits.
The play doesn’t feel like one that’s making a statement, or at least not one that I agree with. Are we supposed to be happy that Jaclyn keeps her job at the cost of her personality? At the end when Rose asks her about the rude Black lady Jaclyn just says they had to let her go, she was too angry. As a Black person, being forced to code switch to that extreme to keep your job is a very bitter ending even though it’s framed as her pulling a fast one on the system. It’s not. She bends over backwards to appease every potential need of the White people around her when it would have been more powerful for her to coerce Ileen and Dr. Williams into writing her glowing recommendations to a better job with coworkers that weren’t afraid of her. This play is a tragedy whether you focus your attention on Jaclyn or Ileen, but I can’t be made to pity someone that was talked into racism.
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