Fairview

Imagine that you are working on a new production of Fairview for a specific audience. Who would you choose as your audience, and why do they need to see it? What do you think that specific audience needs to know before watching the play, and how would you disseminate that information?

Read Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun (1959) or watch a film adaptation. Compare and contrast the ways in which the Younger family and the Frasier family are represented. How might Fairview have taken inspiration from A Raisin in the Sun, and how do the two plays function in conversation with each other?

How does the idea of food in the play change and warp over the course of the play? Use at least three examples from the text to support your argument.

Analyze the four white spectators and their relationships to race and racism. How does each white character serve different purposes, and how do they each come together for a singular purpose in Drury’s broader social commentary?

Why do the four audience members join the play as characters in Act III, and what does it mean when they begin to change the narrative? What might this exchange symbolize on a larger scale?

How does voyeurism appear in the play? Who is watching whom, and how does that dynamic change over the course of the three acts? How do these ideas of voyeurism align with the play’s commentary on race?

Consider the title of the play. What does “Fairview” mean, and how does it appear in the play? What is the larger significance of the title? Consider Keisha’s final monologue in your response.

Describe the world of the play. How does the playwright complicate the construction of time and place, and what is the ultimate effect?