NEW YORK—It’s not always a good idea to go home again, as Tracey Scott Wilson demonstrates in her tautly written drama “Buzzer,” now at the Public Theater.
Jackson (Grantham Coleman), a black man in his mid-20s, came from a tough New York neighborhood. Determined to get out, he earned a scholarship and became a high-priced lawyer.
Now, with the old neighborhood beginning to gentrify, Jackson wants to move back and buys one of the newer apartments before property values go through the roof. It’s an idea his schoolteacher girlfriend Suzy (Tessa Ferrer), who happens to be white, is not thrilled about, though she agrees when Jackson asks her to move in with him.
No sooner has Suzy made her decision than Jackson announces that Don (Michael Stahl-David), his longtime friend and a perennial drug addict, will be staying with them. Don has just completed his seventh stint in rehab. Suzy, who has had her own brushes with Don over the years, is not pleased.
Making matters worse is Don’s insistence on total honesty between the three and his need for constant “family” meetings to clear the air of any problems.
If that weren’t enough, Suzy is being verbally harassed by a group of young men from the area. In response, she finds herself turning not to the workaholic Jackson, who she doesn’t want to burden with her increasing problem of not fitting in, but to Don, who begins to notice these altercations from their apartment window overlooking the street below.
