'EQUAL MEASURE' COMES UP SHORT.

Byline: Jim Farber

Staff Writer

I am not offended by the current cover of the The New Yorker with its satiric portrayal of the radicalized Obamas fist-bumping in the Oval Office.

But I do find Tanya Barfield's new play, "Of Equal Measure," which is receiving its premiere performances at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, offensive.

It's the latest in a long line of agenda-driven dramas to be produced by the Center Theatre Group that doggedly demonize white America while championing the plight of minorities and transforming history into a caricatured humorless political cartoon.

Jade Kingston (Michole Briana White) is a hard-working "Negro" stenographer in the Woodrow Wilson White House; a woman who has advanced herself through diligence and hard work. She is honest and idealistic.

In fact, all the African-American characters in Barfield's play are good, honest and idealistic, just as all her white characters are evil, nefarious, disingenuous, conniving, uncaring and racist.

It's the dawn of America's entry into World War I, and the former peace candidate, President Wilson (played as a flip-flopping nincompoop by Lawrence Pressman) doesn't have a clue what to do. One moment he's for keeping America out of foreign wars. The next he wants to fight the war to end all wars. He's confused about what to do about Pancho Villa and his Mexican revolution, German agitators infiltrating American institutions, and the rash of lynchings that have exploded in the South. All he really wants is a good photo op.

All Kingston wants is to do her job, support her family and, whenever possible, buy a little something to improve her life. Those around her, however, are determined to make that impossible.

Her boss, Edward Christianson (Michael T. Weiss), is a smarmy presidential insider who is determined to racially segregate all government offices, including the White House, while in somewhat contradictory fashion, transforming Kingston into his personal love toy.

She wards off his advances as best she can, until her live-in brother, Eugene (Christopher O'Neal Warren), who also holds a government job, cajoles her into asking her boss to find him a new position. It's a quid pro quo with dire circumstances.

At the same time Kingston's cousin, David Leonard (Joseph C. Phillips), a crusading journalist for a black periodical, is urging her to leak sensitive information from within the White House, to "help your people."

It's a lose/lose scenario for Kingston, who is played with ardent intensity by White. But as she gradually comes to the realization that the White House is a white man's den of iniquity and political repression, she gives in and turns into Deep Throat.

Justified or not, Barfield is determined to draw as many parallels as possible to the Bush administration and its policies regarding the conduct of a foreign war and the dissolution of civil liberties at home.

She even introduces a sinister grand inquisitor, Mr. Plank (T. Ryder Smith), who looks like Count Dracula and has free rein (in time of national emergency) to investigate, incarcerate and brutally torture American citizens.

It's quite possible there is an interesting play to be gleaned from this moment in American history. This one, directed by Leigh Silverman, is not it. Far better you should go see the Los Angeles premiere of "Parade" (at the Neighborhood Playhouse in Palos Verdes), which deals brilliantly with all the same issues at exactly the same moment in America.

Jim Farber [phone], Ext. 416;

[e-mail]

OF EQUAL MEASURE - One and one half stars

>Where: Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City.

>When: 8 p.m. Wednesday, 8:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday; through July 27.

>Cost: $20 to $40.

>Info: [phone], www.centertheatregroup.org.

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Michole Briana White portrays a hardworking stenographer in Tanya Barfield's "Of Equal Measure," which doggedly demonizes White America while championing the plight of minorities.