Time Out New York just released their editor and critic’s picks for the best (and worst) theater of 2009. THE SHIPMENT, by Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company, made the list of David Cote (editor). Congrats to the company for this nod!

Jim Demetre at ArtDish just posted a review of THE SHIPMENT:

When a Korean-American woman decides to take on the subject of race in America by writing a play about blackness cast solely with African American actors, the theater-going public is likely to be filled with curiosity, skepticism, or dread. But what happens when volatility and the promise of social revelation give way instead to an argument about the sorry state of American theater today?

Read the full review.

I first saw Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company’s Songs of the Dragon Flying to Heaven at On the Boards a couple seasons ago and I saw THE SHIPMENT on opening night last Thursday. It’s almost impossible to not compare the two pieces I viewed; both works are “ethnic identity plays”. Both were disorienting pieces that constantly had me shifting the way I was looking at the work, re-organizing what was going on onstage, settling into the uncomfortable atmosphere, and anticipating what was going to happen next. Both take bold, unflinching risks. In short, watching YJL’s work is an exhilarating and engaging experience. This work is fluid, provocative, experimental, and the fearless kind of theater that everyone needs to see. An awesome way to kick off this season at OtB!

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Check out the review just posted on the Teen Tix blog:

The atmosphere is one of light joviality; the patrons of On the Boards anticipate something great. Most seats are full, the theater is humming with conversation– then silence pervades, and The Shipment begins with a burst of light and movement.

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Misha Berson at the Seattle Times reviews THE SHIPMENT:

On the Boards is opening its new season with a crude, confounding, provocative and at times ripely offensive performance piece.

That’s a good thing.

Read more.

…both recommend THE SHIPMENT:

“Playwright Young Jean Lee runs with scissors.” – The Stranger

“All advance reports from friends in Portland who’ve seen the show assure me that The Shipment, the comic show about black identity politics which opens this Thursday at On the Boards, lives up to the hype from New York that I mentioned in our Fall Arts Guide last month.” – Seattle Met

Check them out!

While I like a work of theatre that is entertaining, I also like one that makes me challenge my own assumptions, has an emotional punch, and gets people talking — THE SHIPMENT does it all. Racial issues in America are always a sensitive and thorny subject to tackle, and this piece does it with humor, and while it might not seem like it as you feel like you’ve been punched by what’s been said on stage, with delicacy. Young Jean Lee and her talented cast have built a finely crafted piece that moves through several familiar genres of performance: dance, song, stand up comedy, a stereotypical “after school special” about the evils of rap, and your basic drawing room drama. The familiarity of these forms initially puts you at ease – you think you know what to expect, but then the brutal frankness of the subject matter makes you squirm.

This show made me uncomfortable, it made me laugh, I even got teary at one point as the protagonist of the second half of the play screamed out (from a black male mouth) my own terrible fear about turning 30. And what is beautiful about this piece (among many things) is that I am sure every single person in that audience had a very different and very visceral response to the performance, as they each filtered it through their own cultural lens.

The statement has (ridiculously) been made that we are a country that has moved beyond race. The extreme falsity of that claim means that now, more than ever, we need to have shows like THE SHIPMENT that challenge audiences and foster dialogue. Everyone should go see this. Take your friends. Take your mom. Take a high school student you know. And let’s start talking about these issues, because that’s the only path to beginning healing.

- Lezlie Cross

Did you see The Shipment? Read patron and press reviews, click on the Comments button to read the comments of others and post your own thoughts.

Jeremy Barker sat down with 2 cast members of THE SHIPMENT earlier this week for an interview. He just posted a preview of the piece:

If there’s any story that gets to the crux of what’s at stake in Young Jean Lee’s The Shipment, which may be the most important and challenging show playing in Seattle this season, this was it…

Read more.

Our friends to the South, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, recently programmed THE SHIPMENT as part of their TBA Festival. Their blog lit up with reviews about the show; here’s a few to check out:

The Secret to Race: There’s No Catharsis by Jens Larson

Import more of this by Camela Raymond

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME by Susan Ploetz

More reviews are available on THE SHIPMENT’s performance page.