Broken Nose Theatre presents PLAINCLOTHES Review

If you’re a Millennial or younger, Broken Nose Theatre’s PLAINCLOTHES, now tucked into one of Den Theatre’s studio spaces, has a familiar vibe. If you’re beyond Millennial age, this new play by Spenser Davis is a lively education. PLAINCLOTHES shows how a generation raised on social media functions in a workplace that pre-dates the internet -- specifically, a Chicago department store’s “loss prevention” office.

Evan Frank’s set is so authentically drab, you can all but smell its mustiness. Budget-starved and downright grubby, this is where the multi-racial plainclothes guards of Brady’s Department Store (fictional successor to Marshall Field’s and Macy’s) retreat when they’re not working the sales floor with earpieces and walkie-talkies.

BROKEN NOSE THEATRE production digs into details

Amid the office’s generic furnishings, a bench with metal handles serves as a kind of handcuff hitching post. Serial shoplifter Jomal (Ben F. Locke), an African American with a drag queen persona, offends more with his body odor than whatever he slipped into his pocket. When a white guy gets cuffed to the bench, the young staffers recognize him as a YouTube sensation with over a million followers. To attract so many clicks, all he does is videotape himself opening Amazon packages. He can’t explain why he stole something from Brady’s any more than he can explain why he opens packages.

For those who give little thought to loss prevention, PLAINCLOTHES digs into the details. Similar to a car dealership, the office has a board that records the team’s actual arrests vs goals. A “bad stop” means apprehending someone who turns out to be innocent. “AFA” indicates an Asian Female Adult. To meet the monthly quota, black kids are easy prey.

Retail and race intersect in PLAINCLOTHES

The real catch, it turns out, are white people so that management has the stats to prove they scrutinize whites as closely as shoppers of color. After a violent encounter between a homeless black man and three security guards, the team is put on “corporate probation.” A camera is installed in the office, purportedly to protect the staff from further assaults, but everyone knows that management is spying on them. How race permeates the workplace becomes PLAINCLOTHES’ most potent message. The mantra “we get fired, white men get transferred” plays out in ways that are unexpected but plausible.

PLAINCLOTHES’ humor never falters

The humor in Davis’ sharp script never falters. According to the local cop (Kim Boler), the American Girl store is “where dreams put on dresses and die.” Sales associate Mary (RjW Mays) took one bite of Brady’s delicious quiche “and saw the afterlife.” Mixed-race Llermo (Alejandro Tey) describes Michael Bublé as “zero-calorie Sinatra” and Bublé’s holiday loop as “worse than waterboarding.”

There’s a lot beneath the zingers when it comes to the intersection of race and retail. Reporting to white middle-age Jim (Rob Frankel), these Millennials function within the department store’s power structure. Asian-American “T” (Stephanie Shum) knows what really happened during the altercation with the homeless black man. What she reveals and when – and how her co-workers respond -- create the play’s central moral dilemma.