St. Paul, Minn.: love (and race) as a contact sport.(FRONT and CENTER)(Slippery When Wet)(Theater Review)

American Theatre, February, 2005 by Renner, Pamela

There are elements of autobiography embedded in Slippery When Wet, a play about an interracial attraction fraught with tensions. So while playwright Suzen Murakoshi herself initiated the role of Helen in the play's early productions, during the mid-1990s, she's quite content to pass her mantle to a younger actress for the play's opening this month at Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul, Minn. Murakoshi insists that Helen must come across as a woman, not a girl: "She's young, she's new to New York, she's still at the mercy of the city. But she's not stupid."

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When Helen meets Rakim at a gallery opening, she is transfixed by him, and he by her. The only catch is that he's African-American and she's Asian-American--in Helen's...

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