BIAS

I love me a simple title! So I was already in a good mood going into this play.

The tagline for Bias is “The Professor accused the student of cheating. The student accused the Professor of discrimination.” And that’s basically all you need to know. It’s definitely interesting to see what goes on behind the scenes of schooling. The situation is so relevant today, not just in the world of academia, but everywhere, because it appears that everyone now accuses anyone of everything they can think of!

As the child of educators, (and, actually, having been one myself right out of college,) I can attest to how real this new play is. It’s based on a true incident, and I’m just about positive that there are many more like it in real life, judging from my family’s experiences alone.

For me, the best thing about Bias is that I’m sure it will remind a lot of people about something similar in their lives, so the show will mean something a bit different to each audience member. For example, I was thinking of a controversy that my teacher mother had to go through, (I’ll explain it after the info at the end of this review,) and my friend, Nina2, told me afterwards of her own difficult situation with the world of education. I’m sure that everyone who sees this play will have similar experiences.

Here’s one thing Bias reminded me of, due to part of the reason the professor is sort-of down on the student in question. And that is that the guy rarely shows up to class. So that situation made me think of how I was graded in my Set Design class as a Theatre Major in my first (of four) colleges, Brooklyn College, (which playwright Art Shulman also attended!) I didn’t attend class very often, and did the bare minimum of work. (I had a very busy social life; some things never change.) And then the Prof had us hand in cards with the grade that we thought we deserved. I decided to be positive, and wrote an “A,” half as a joke. (I probably deserved a D!) And I received…an A! I wound-up dating him the next semester, (when he wasn’t my professor anymore,) and asked him why he gave me an A, assuming the answer was because he had that crush on me. But he answered, “It’s what you told me you deserved, right? You know what you did better than I do!” That was insane, of course, to trust us students with giving ourselves a grade. (Thank goodness I decided to not be humble that one time.) I thank Bias for providing that fun memory for me.

As far as the actual production goes, the entire seven-person cast is good. Nina2 especially liked Jerry Weil, who plays the Professor and is a doppelgänger for Paul Reiser, while my fave was Sammie Wayne IV, as the arbiter of the controversy, who’s a late arrival to the story. He’s the most natural, and reminded me of the real-life judge who amusedly dismissed me from Jury Duty some years ago, adding that I should say hello to my mother, boyfriend, and all my friends for him! (No lie.)

But there are a few issues with the show. First and foremost, the presentation would benefit from being about ten to fifteen minutes shorter. While the scenario is somewhat interesting, some of the script becomes repetitive.

And there are two bits of “business” that drove my friend and me a tad crazy, although one finally does pay off at the very end. The first one is that the two offices where most of the action takes place feature…colorful M&Ms dispensers! There’s absolutely no purpose for them, and they’re very distracting, especially when they spill out by accident, and the actors don’t acknowledge that little snafu. And every time the scene changes, they have to remember to change them out. Part of the usage is to show us whose office the characters are in each time, but there are other indicators, so no one could mistake it. And one of the dispensers is decorated for Christmas, so Nina2 thought it was to demonstrate passage of time, which I did, as well, the first time it appeared. But when I realized something they said made it known that the setting is now at least a month later, the holiday garb on the giant M&M became simply confusing. And, perhaps worse, some of us just craved the little buggers the entire time! [Spoiler Alert: This is the one that pays off because after the curtain call, the cast hands-out little bags of M&Ms!]

And, even though I’m someone who loves writing with pencils, (to denote something unimportant or obligatory,) the chairman of the department character constantly marking papers with one, especially when people are talking to her, is a tad insane, actually. No one is that rude! Especially when she’s supposed to be one of the good guys. Put the pencil down for goodness sake, and give your visitors some respect! The actress, Nina Bell, is clearly just trying to do busy work, but it doesn’t fly. I don’t know whose choice that is—the actor’s or director’s—but it’s not a good one. Enough already! I used to love pencils and M&Ms, but this show knocked both affections out of me a bit.

And lastly, the actors all speak in a very low-key manner, which in a way makes the action more realistic, but also a bit like a rehearsal. So they need to find a happy medium with that.

But none of those issues interfere greatly with the actual story, which demonstrates the fine line between “bias” and “discrimination.” It’s still worthwhile, probably even moreso now that they’ve had an extra couple of weeks for it to all gel.

Bias running through December 14, 2025
Hudson Guild Theatre 
6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood

323-856-4249 www.hudsontheatre.com

Okay, here’s what happened to my mother, who was the most popular teacher I’ve ever met. To this day I get messages from former students telling me how much she meant to them. And, as a high school English teacher, they all loved that she taught Beatles songs as part of her own homemade curriculum! So, she had one student, a basketball player I’ll just call “Stretch,” and she really liked him. He was in a major documentary film back then, which compared his life to that of a white Indiana player. My little mo was in it, too! But then, being the honest teacher she was, she had to…fail Stretch! She adored the kid, but he didn’t do the work and failed all the tests. He felt he could skate by on his “fame” and on my mother being so nice. And on his importance to the school—they needed him in order to win the Championship. (Or something like that; I was too young to understand all of it.) So her department Chairman and all the other higher-ups tortured her about failing him, but she stuck to her guns. However, the entire sad episode never left her.