A brutal 55-minute adaptation of the LeRoi Jones play. Shirley Knight is a white woman who verbally (and seductively) abuses a seemingly mild mannered black man (Al Freeeman Jr) on a NYC subway train. She's alternately taunting and teasing and when she goes too far, Freeman explodes in a fit of rage. Their encounter serves as an in-your-face metaphor for the racial unrest running rampant in the US in the 1960s and it still packs a punch. Knight is startling and Freeman is excellent in what is essentially a two character play. John Barry's razor sharp score adds a lot and director Anthony Harvey is not hampered by the confined space of the set (an astonishing recreation of a subway car filmed on a sound stage in England). Brutal honesty.
Review of Dutchman
