Jeffrey Wright is considered one of the most respected and versatile character actors of his generation. Now, the Washington, D.C., native has returned to the stage in New York in the Lincoln Center Theater’s production of John Guare’s A Free Man of Color.
“A Free Man” is an original play set in the boisterous New Orleans culture that existed just prior to the historic Louisiana Purchase. It provides a glimpse of New Orleans “before law and order took hold and before class, racial and political linew were drawn,” according to Lincoln Center Theater’s Web site. Wright plays the wealthy Jacques Cornet, who, used to “commanding the men, seducing the women, and preening like a peacock,” is challenged by impending new American rule.
A Free Man is an ambitious effort that is part farce and part historical drama.
In 1994, Wright won a Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards for his performance as Roy Cohn’s nurse, Belize, in Angels in America: Perestroika. In 1996 Wright was cast as the lead in Basquiat, a film about the life and death of Andy Warhol’s protégé, Jean-Michel Basquiat.
The play will run through January 2011.
–torrance stephens
