I think this show taps into Portland's self-consciousness about race particularly well, and it's refreshing to see a meditation about black culture in the festival that doesn't revolve around someone doing a medley of R. Kelly songs.

Just saw The Shipment tonight and was very glad I did -- it was thought-provoking without being preachy. Really well-acted and entertaining, too. But, man, I wish I hadn't read this review before going to see it! You totally gave away the "secret" of the last piece and I'm really annoyed that I didn't have the opportunity to experience the piece the way the author intended. At least give a spoiler alert next time...

Huh. That didn't even occur to me. It's too late now, but sorry!

I hardly think that the end of the play was such a "secret." I thought the last act was a little ham-fisted, especially the last line/secret/reveal, which was too patently inscribed in the act to have been much of a secret or a real revelation. Lee did such a fantastic job describing these multivalent tensions between pop-culture, history, and race, that to end it with a kind of trite "gotcha" does the rest of the work a disservice. Especially in the concert with the rest of the play's structural and textual allusions to the minstrel show (which I think is what Ms. Hallett means instead of "Vaudeville") it would have left the last act open to a broader range of interpretive readings (who is playing who, to or against what expectations, etc) that would better serve the discourse Lee is engaging...Wow, I sound like a pretentious turd. In short: really great show, just wish there was a little more credit given to the audience, or at least a little less IKEA.