Stage: Pure Confidence

59E59 Theaters

New York, (212) 279-4200

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Pure Confidence “mines a fascinating and little-known vein of American history,” said Rachel Saltz in The New York Times. In the genteel sport of horse racing as practiced in the antebellum South, slaves were often used as jockeys. Playwright Carlyle Brown taps this historical nugget to tell a tale about the “complexities of the master-slave relationship” and its conflicting emotions. The play’s central character, Simon Cato, is a slave and a skilled jockey who “seems to win races at will.” Simon and the man whose horse he rides, Colonel Johnson, strike a bargain: The jockey will forfeit his cut of all winnings to buy his own freedom and that of Caroline, a Johnson house slave whom he loves.

“Brown’s play is nothing if not ultimately unsettling,” said Sam Thielman in Variety. In the first act, we see Simon and the colonel “bond over their love of the sport.” Brown infuses the play with “snatches of charged dialogue,” as when Simon wryly remarks that he’s “the one with the whip.” It’s clear the two men make a great pair, though seeing “slave and slaveholder as a team of lovable con men puts us off our guard.” Act 2, which takes place in 1877, finds the former slaves Simon and Caroline married and living in Saratoga, N.Y., where, ironically, the locals are “more inclined to distrust a man based on his skin color.” A racing injury has put an end to Simon’s career, and he takes a job as a bellhop in a hotel. “Painful” realities surface when his former owners arrive at the hotel as guests.

Unfortunately, this “beautifully written and elegantly crafted historical drama” is hurt by an “uneven” production, said Andy Propst in Theatermania.com. Director Marion McClinton “serves up a sometimes sluggish staging.” And some key performances, notably Chris Mulkey’s take on the colonel, are “two-dimensional” and seemingly based on caricatures straight out of Gone With the Wind. Gavin Lawrence, however, is “winning” as the cocksure Simon, and Christiana Clark’s Caroline is markedly graceful. The strength of those two performances and of Brown’s script are somehow “enough to pull audiences through Pure Confidence, which emerges a winner—if only by a nose.”