There’s a musical on Broadway called Memphis. It caught my eye because it seemed like it really represented the music from inside a great city. So I thought to myself – that’s the way to make a show named after a city… last week I saw the play Detroit, which does no such thing.

Don’t get me wrong – some parts of the play were good. The set was well done, the lights were well done, the acting was pretty good, the Hilberry Theater is beautiful… But the story – which has been nominated for numerous awards – just didn’t do it for me. I don’t claim to be a theater critic, or even a regular theater-goer. But I do claim to be one to enjoy a solid plot and to be a recent Detroit citizen. These two things really hampered my experience.

The story is set in a “first ring suburb outside a mid-sized American city,” say the press notes. The audience sees the adjoining backyards of two suburban houses – one couple who were once the status symbol of success and are now on a downward spiral (the husband loses his job, tries to start up a business, and their romance is faltering); the other are recovering drug addicts from the city who are trying to lead a better life in spite of close calls with drugs and alcohol and their lack of employment.

The play shows the two couples getting closer to each other (emotionally and weirdly romantically) and focused on the buildup of their relationships, which culminated in an awkward drunkfest ending with the addicts setting a house on fire.

Prior to the play I did some research on this “critically acclaimed dark comedy” that, according to a review by The Examiner, “truly pays homage to our hometown.” The review went on to quote the director as saying “the play is a Detroit story,” and “we’re a city bereft of revenue, neighborhoods, and opportunity.” The playwright herself said she “titled it Detroit in part because that name and that city evoke a particular type of anxiety in Americans” and that she “could have called it Flint [or] Cleveland,” but that it’s “about any Midwestern city that has gone through the troubles that Detroit has.”

The play didn’t seem bereft to me at all. It was set in suburbia with a family that could live off one income for 7 months and not dip into their savings. And to name a play because it evokes a particular negative emotion seems like it’s prostituting the very anxiety that the city is trying to overcome, which certainly doesn’t do the city any justice.

I walked out of the theater feeling like the suburban couple did after the drug addicts set fire to their home: a little empty, unsure of what was happening, and wondering where Detroit was in the story (the characters may not have asked that, but I did). The play may have mentioned one local highway in the metro Detroit area. And featured drug addiction. And arson. And houses. But there was really no homage paid, no real mention of the city at all. 80% of the actors were white (and got 90% of the stagetime). The setting was outside the city. Call it Suburbia and you’d have something – maybe.

To me, this play was about perception. The playwright herself hadn’t stepped foot in the city until fall of 2012, long after the play was written. And this is nothing against her – she was simply writing from what most of the country knows of Detroit. But it is perceptions like these that we as a fellowship (and we as a city) are trying to change – to acknowledge the actual issues of the city, to acknowledge potential solutions, and to make things happen. Perhaps we can convince Ms. D’Amour to write a sequel someday with these things in mind.

I’m not saying don’t see the play. Go for it. It was almost entertaining. But don’t go with any “Detroit” expectations in mind – after all, they could have been talking about Memphis.

**End note: many thanks go to the Detroit Passport to the Arts for giving us access to this and other shows. The Passport is a great way to culturally expose yourself to this city – check it out at http://dp2a.org/.

Contributed by fellow Jason Rose