Cynthia Nixon directs workplace war in ‘Rasheeda Speaking’

Pray you never get embroiled in an office war — stuck in a room with your foe, day after day, trying to figure out how to defeat them before they defeat you.

"Rasheeda Speaking" follows one of those battles from beginning to end. Adding fuel to the fire, the opponents — played by the formidable Dianne Wiest and Tonya Pinkins, under Cynthia Nixon's direction — are of different races.
Actually, that fact probably started the fire to begin with.

Ileen (Wiest) and Jaclyn (Pinkins) handle paperwork from their adjacent desks at a Chicago medical practice. They get along well enough, but their boss, Dr. Williams (Darren Goldstein), has it in for Jaclyn, whose attitude he calls "terrible."

"She's not meant for this office," he complains to Ileen. "She doesn't have the social skills for it. Too angry, too mad at the world."

Since that's not enough to have Jaclyn transferred, Williams asks Ileen to spy on her colleague and write down instances of bad behavior — often highly subjective things, like being curt toward patients. The diffident Ileen uneasily agrees.
Once Jaclyn realizes what's going on, she counterattacks with canny psychological manipulation.

Playwright Joel Drake Johnson tends to overdo the racial elements (Jaclyn herself looks down on her Latino neighbors), but he makes sharp points about how people get lumped in a group — the "Rasheeda" of the title is the name some white riders on Jaclyn's bus give to all black women.

Johnson also has interesting things to say about workplace dynamics, and mines an intriguing gray area between drama and comedy.

Under Nixon's direction — her debut — this New Group production relies too much on sitcomy effects, trading malaise for laughs. But it's a joy watching Pinkins and Wiest square off. The former crafts a portrait of a shrewd survivor, while the latter makes Ileen a meek casualty of her own passivity.

When it comes to its stars, this workplace battle ends in a draw.

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