"Black Gold", a Play with a Message

I recently saw the play, “Black Gold,” by Seth Rosin at the InterAct Theater in Philadelphia. While billed as a hilarious satire, it is a darkly serious play on multiple levels.

Primarily, it depicts the greed of our nation for oil, the deep rooted ties of the oil industry to the President’s office, the abuse oil magnates heap upon all of us, but particularly the poor and oppressed inner city largely black population. It also shows the insidious push by credit card companies to take advantage of people short on cash coupled with the constant unrelenting bombardment of the entire American population to buy, buy, buy. The futile efforts of the Black church to curb the appetites of its poor constituents for the wealth that surrounds them are poignant. In the end, an entire neighborhood of poor black Americans is destroyed by the swirl of multiple evils around them.

Interlaced in the American drama is the continual hatred of different races and faiths for one another. The racial and ethnic hatreds are exacerbated by the drive of everyone to procure material comforts for themselves and their families. Furthermore, the insidious advertising and credit businesses feed on human aspirations for comfort and wealth and turn aspirations into greed.

The play offers little hope for all of us in this evil consumer driven downward spiral. The one glimmer or flame of hope portrayed at the end of the play, however, is in cross-cultural friendships between young people. I left the play feeling that is one flame we all must fan.