“The Niceties” reviewed by Julia W. Rath

***** “The Niceties” is an expertly written two-hander directed by Tim Rhoze, which stars Georgerinna Farley as Zoe, a 20-year-old African American college student, and Jesi Mullins as Janine, a white history professor whose family escaped communism in Poland. This high-powered play by Eleanor Burgess is deep on many levels, often having to do with the impact of structural racism on our nation’s history and culture—and how it is internalized within. The story also takes on the history of comparative revolutions, the legitimacy of higher education in America, and the issue of whether or not we live in a democracy.

The tale unfolds innocently enough when Zoe visits her professor’s office for advice on how she could improve upon her term paper: the subject being the effect of slavery on the American Revolution. The discussion begins nicely and politely, that is, when Janine mentions grammatical errors in the text. However, in time she gets to the meat of her criticisms: that she didn’t think that Zoe grounded her paper strongly enough on the historical evidence. This sets off a discussion about the lack of written records concerning political action from the point of view of enslaved people during the antebellum era (who were not taught to write). What ensues is an argument between them, not only having to do with the persistence of racism through the present-day but also whether the United States could be considered a democracy, considering the presence of a low-income, largely minority, and often disenfranchised underclass. Whereas Janine sees progress for blacks and people of color to be slow but moving in the right direction, none of this is occurring fast enough for Zoe. As the dialogue between them devolves into harsh putdowns and microaggressions, it becomes evident that the two see the world and their place in it from widely different vantage points.

In part, some of this difference in perspective is due to their age difference. Janine is older than Zoe, and her way of thinking has, to some extent, been validated by the “powers-that-be”, who previously hired her into the job of assistant professor in the history department. Yet we learn that her position at the university is somewhat tenuous, because she is currently up for tenure. But more importantly, their divergent points of view have to do with differences in how they have come to understand the meaning of race in American society.

Zoe, as a black woman, seems cognizant of how her present social situation allows her to choose among three possible directions in life: to gain a respectable job and income as a result of going to college; to follow in the footsteps of Josephine Baker and others who left the U.S.A. so as to live in a more racially hospitable environment; or to remain in this country and take up the fight for racial justice, especially after the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. (Note that the story is set in 2015-16, during the final year of the Obama Administration and shortly after the founding of the Black Lives Matter movement.) When Zoe questions the validity not only of the educational institution but also Janine’s ability to teach, Janine decides to examine herself and her own beliefs. What does it mean to have George Washington’s portrait on the wall of her office? And is she worthy of tenure after all? Then too, is it so terrible to give Zoe the B+ that she wants, so that she can qualify for the community-oriented job which she is eyeing? But does she deserve the grade? This leads us to the notion of how we assess excellence in higher education and a person’s worth in society.

The structure of the play ultimately hinges on two different approaches for understanding history, namely, evidentiary (books and records and artifacts) versus experiential (consciousness and values). Here we can see the shift from one generation to the next as to what may constitute proof of an argument, with online research becoming more and more reputable. But perhaps more importantly, the story opens us up to what constitutes the meaning of facts and how they may be determined and used to understand history. Then too, we’re dealing with the relative significance of any one fact in relation to any other or to the exclusion of others. This falls into the interpretation of facts, which, once again, boils down to consciousness and how we perceive things… or choose to perceive them.

The presentation makes us ask ourselves: Is our (so-called) democracy more aspirational than real? Then one has to consider whether some elements of society have already given up on our present system of government. This could take place on the left: among those who might argue that a revolution is necessary because a largely middle-class nation has not gone far enough to abolish the underclass and fully include minorities and the indigent in its workings. It could take place on the right, as evinced by the killings of black men, leading to the Black Lives Matter movement (and later, to the reactionary insurrection on January 4, 2021, replete with its Confederate flags).

This story eventually turns to whether and how any one of us can grasp another person’s experience if we haven’t lived it ourselves. It makes us wonder if there can truly be any middle ground between having empathy for another person’s situation as compared to the expression: “You don’t know how I feel.” While Janine has never lived the black experience, neither has Zoe lived the immigrant family experience. Because the two have led such diverse lives, they start to lose any common ground for comprehending what the other must think or feel, culminating in a mutual loss of respect.

In the second act (which takes place three weeks after the first), the two women have a second meeting and are willing to talk about their prior dispute. When the characters’ confrontation about the meaning of history turns into conflict regarding how to view the current situation in the United States, this spills into a discussion of their life choices. And although tempers flare again, the good part is that they are having this uneasy conversation, rather than being passive or hiding their opinions. At this point, when power differentials between the two of them have fallen, we get to see still more about what these women are about. Whereas in the first act we might have inferred how personal circumstances (relating to race, class, gender, background, etc.) have shaped each characters’ thinking process, it is in the second act when we start to see that a good deal of the discord between the characters is also based on personality. Ironically, personality ultimately becomes the most important thing when two people have to deal with each other, because there has to be some level of trust in any relationship, including that of a student and their academic advisor, especially when doling out criticism.

Rhoze’s set design is effective and well-done. Bookshelves and books line the stage, with portraits of key figures in revolutions lining the walls. The professor’s desk sports a nifty executive chair with lumbar support and a more typical wooden chair for the student. There is also an electric kettle for boiling tea. On the blueboard framed in red with white writing, there is a quotation from Thomas Jefferson “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” and also a line from Frederick Douglass, dated July 5, 1852, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice. I must mourn.”

The actors’ timing and their expressions could not have been any better: What hard work it must be for Farley and Mullins to keep throwing all those insults around at every performance! From my perspective in the audience, I could see people nod their heads or shake them… or squirm. What was most interesting were the comments as the show progressed, especially when hearing the rawness of the characters’ interactions. This is a story that makes us question how we connect to the reality we live in. It also demonstrates that understanding how another person may think or react or believe is not as easy or reflexive as knowing something about their background or where they come from—or sharing a common interest in the study of social revolutions.

Finally, on a personal note, the play stirred up lots of memories from the time I was a graduate student. The characteristics of my former thesis advisor and the female professor in this story are eerily similar in many respects: from her field of study to her back pain to her tenure battle to her offering her student a cup of tea—and then there are more parallels than that! As I am writing this up, it seems more and more obvious that one was modeled after the other, and it was very interesting to note someone else’s experience with the same professor. I don’t know if watching this show was more disturbing or cathartic for me, but it made me realize that I was not the only one…. This play will nicely live in my mind for a long time.

“The Niceties” is playing through November 15, 2026, at the Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre in the Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes Street, in Evanston. (Note that there are only six performances.)

Tickets: $33.00

Seniors: $22.00

Students: $10.00 – for purchase at the box office on the day of performance with ID.

Performance schedule:

Saturdays at 7:00 p.m.

Sundays at 3:00 p.m.

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit: www.fjtheatre.com or https://cityofevanston.org/explore/arts_culture/theatre/fleetwood_jourdain_theatre.php.

To see what others are saying, visit www.theatreinchicago.com, go to Review Round-Up and click on “The Niceties”.