Smart People: A Play

In Smart People, Lydia R. Diamond shows that no matter how well we think we understand the influence of race on human interaction, it still manages to get in the way of genuine communication and connection. This funny and thought-provoking play gives us four characters all associated with Harvard: a young African American actress cleaning houses and doing odd jobs to pay the bills until her recently earned M.F.A. starts to pay off; a Chinese and Japanese American psychology professor studying race and identity in Asian American women; an African American surgical intern; and a white professor of neuroscience with a shocking hypothesis, researching the way that our racial perceptions are formed. As their relationships evolve, the four discover that their motivations and interpretations are not as pure as their wealth of knowledge would have them believe. As in all of her work, Diamond brings a sharp wit and a subtle intelligence to bear on questions that never cease to trouble us as individuals and as a society.