PICKLETON, MO, August 15 – New York City playwright George Johnson returns for only one occasion to his hometown of Jackson, Missouri, that is the openings of his latest plays. Unlike other playwrights who are elated by the prospect of an big-time opening night, Johnson always insists that the opening night be held in his own hometown, as a preview to test the public reaction to his controversial themes.

Usually, the crowd exits the small Richardson Theater in a wave of ear-bursting chatter and critique, but his latest work Governor’s Crossing, caused the crowd to migrate from the theater in dazed concern that stemmed from the play’s terrible theme.

The plot of the complicated 2-act play is strange. Paul Thompson, or "Fat Pa ET" as MTV calls him, has made his first million from his blossoming rap career. Mostly for Public Relations, Fat Pa ET moves his very colorful family into the predominantly white neighborhood after which the play is named.

The three Thompsons quickly go into culture shock. Mrs. Thompson spends her days cooking fried foods and "volunteerin’" at the local "Black Baptist" church. Shaquina, Mrs. Thompson’s 18-year-old daughter, is very visibly pregnant, and pines after her pimp boyfriend once her family moves to Governor’s Crossing. Tommy, the youngest child, raps like his brother, and is heavily tattooed with the symbols of his gang. Their abusive father is finally locked in jail for drug use.

The Thompson’s Caucasian neighbors, the Wellingtons, are Republican, rich, and conservatively Catholic. They fight over little things, such as curtain styles and the exact hue of their prize-winning lawn. Their son, Charles, a student at Stanford University, is a well-dressed and clean gentleman, and their daughter Caroline is bound for Harvard, and is the valedictorian of her boarding school class. Neither of their children, however, enter the play. The Wellington parents live alone in Governor’s Crossing. Mrs. Wellington (Kitty) spends her days involved in Governor’s Crossing functions, constantly praising Charles Sr., her husband, a doctor.

The families inevitably conflict, each member of the family insulting each member of the others. The insults are personality-directed, but the background of race is always present. One might say, so what? It has racial jokes. So do so many television shows, movies, and yes, other plays!

Governor’s Crossing is different from these. In the play, the actors who play the Thompsons are Caucasians in dark makeup, and the Wellingtons are African Americans in white greasepaint.

Sandra Simpson’s (Kitty Wellington) personality as an actress dictates that she is fiery in her insults, and the controversial word nigger rolls easily and often off her tongue from the very beginning. She uses it to refer to the Thompsons and all of their ways. Her husband, Charles Sr., often talks obscenely of his scorn of the kind, yet strong-willed Mrs. Thompson, and her proclivity to have and share excess food.

The Wellingtons, however, are not the most racially biased characters in the play, as one should expect, but rather the Thompsons themselves are like parodies of themselves. Their grammar and attitude are terrible, their manner is foolish (to say the least), and their carefree and dazed nature in Governor’s Crossing seems to reflect the playwright’s thought that they belong in the ghetto.

All these things bring back memories of minstrel shows of eighty years ago, in which white men portrayed black people in order to parody and stereotype their behavior. The characters in minstrel shows were ill-adjusted and seemed just plain foolish, not unlike the Thompsons in Governor’s Crossing.

This critic is surprised that such a play could be performed in any theater for its content. From this viewing one would predict that the play will go broke from boycotts and lawsuits, and be tossed out long before the play is scheduled to run. George Johnson will be blacklisted, and perhaps the only theater at which this play will be performed will be in his own home town of Pickleton. Perhaps, as one might hope, Governor’s Crossing will be abolished entirely.