Straight White Men on Broadway

As with all holiday weekends spent at home with family, tensions are high and true colors emerge in Young Jean Lee’s “Straight White Men.” It’s Christmas Eve, and Ed has gathered his three grown sons at home to celebrate. Drew, a celebrated fiction writer, and Jake, a well-off banker, journey back to the Midwest to join Matt, the oldest and least successful of the three — he’s been living at home with their father for a while now.

A seemingly ordinary holiday quickly turns hostile, though, when Matt breaks down into tears, conversations concerning a straight white man’s purpose come to the forefront. Is the privileged white guy, who once studied at Harvard, cracking under pressure to follow society’s master plan? And what exactly is the marker to measure his success? In “Straight White Men,” questions like these are explored beside the Christmas tree.

• “Straight White Men” marks the first Broadway play by an Asian-American female playwright.
• “Call Me By Your Name” actor Armie Hammer makes his Broadway debut as Drew, the fiction writer, in “Straight White Men.”
• Playwright Young Jean Lee identifies most closely with the character of Matt. In fact, she says, “Matt is me. If I woke up tomorrow as a single white male, I would have a crisis.”
• “Straight White Men” premiered off Broadway at the Public Theater in 2014 to rave reviews, and Anna D. Shapiro, who helms the Broadway production, produced the play at Steppenwolf Theatre, where she’s the artistic director, in 2017.