Before Blacken the Bubble officially began, Dixon Place in the Lower East Side of New York City was filled with the mournful strains of an out-of-tune upright piano. The sounds cascaded from behind a makeshift curtain, and I was soothed for a quick second until the tone-deaf masses recognized the tune and began to create their version of “Duke of Earl”.

After that, they sang “Lean on Me,” a few verses of “I Believe I Can Fly,” and someone played a few very interesting improvisations on a didgeridoo. At this point, the tone for the rest of the night became clear.

Blacken the Bubble was a revival of The Movement Theatre Company’s hit from April of last year. Shown for two sold-out performances this year, March 25th and 26th, the play was written by Eric Lockley and directed by Deena Selenow.

It tells the story of a corporate office – what they do there is not certain or particularly pertinent – who decide to “diversify” by hiring a black executive. When Trevor Washington, played by LC Witter, opts not to fill in his race on the government forms, the rest of the employees sometimes gently, but mostly not-so-gently, try to persuade him to change his mind.

Dixon Place, which is an intimate and multi-level space where the audience can feel completely immersed in the action, is a perfect venue for the play. Blacken the Bubble used the space to its advantage, and characters ran through the aisles and yelled from the balconies, but never enough to feel gimmicky.

After all, most of the play was a slapstick comedy, and somehow the uncomfortably honest tone of the script combined with the in-your-face staging made it that much more hilarious.

The actors were not afraid to make their characters as wacky as possible, and their easy rapport was infectious. Alexander Richard as Brad, the boss’s nephew, and Xosha Roquemore as Kanese, the best friend of the only other black employee, commanded the most comic attention because they were the most stereotypical of their respective races. At one point, Brad said in no attempt to lower his voice, “She’s hot for a black chick.”

In fact, every character was a stereotype. This tactic can work to the advantage of a play about racism in post-racial America. But the play failed to push real boundaries of the implications of affirmative action and instead plays mostly for laughs.

Trevor had an odd quirk of humming scales when he was thinking, which he justified by saying that he found silence “insufferable”. But this was the only real depth that he was allowed to have before he became yet another stereotype of the misunderstood black guy in a world that expected him to affirm his “blackness”.

Still, the play worked in its own way. It was laugh-out-loud, funny at times, and entertaining throughout, at least until the odd ending featuring a dark stage, stark lighting, and an angels’ chorus of sorts. Trevor heard two women singing about race and patriotism from the balconies in a stroke of brilliant staging, but it made him seem less introspective and more schizophrenic, especially when the lights cut to black.

Lockley seemed to be using the end to reveal the serious issues behind the jokes, but it is difficult to make a serious inquiry into racism when you have a guy walking around with a bucket of chicken on his head and pants barely clinging to his, um, rear end. And did I mention one of the characters was named Mr. G’Old Boy?

The mission statement for The Movement Theatre Company ends with this: “We are ready to break the bonds that keep communities chained to ignorance, inactivity and stereotypes. No longer content to wait, WE ARE READY TO MOVE!”

Perhaps this approach to race as everything and nothing has its roots in post-black art, a term coined by Thelma Golden of the Studio Museum in Harlem. “The artist Glenn Ligon and I began to refer to this stance, this attitude, as post-black art,” said Golden in an interview with the Gothamist, “meaning that these younger artists seemed not oppressed by the strangle-hold of the terminology.”

Maybe all Trevor Washington wanted was to be defined by remaining undefined. Where Blacken the Bubble truly succeeded is in shocking the audience with its own laughter; that is where to find the real beauty of comedy rooted in hatred.