“The Niceties” is a gripping two-character drama that about a student-teacher conference that escalates to a conflagration. The play by Eleanor Burgess was recently presented in an outstanding production by Soul Siren Playhouse.

The action takes place in March 2016 in the office of Janine Bosko, a tenured professor in her early 60s at an elite northeastern university. Zoe Reed, a 20-year-old black student, has come to the office to discuss her term paper in a history class on revolutions.

Once niceties such as writing style are out of the way, they get down to the real differences between them. Zoe’s thesis is that “a successful American Revolution was only possible because of the existence of slavery.” While admiring the idea’s originality, Janine wants a substantial revision because the argument is unsupported by primary sources.

The suggestion to rewrite is a nonstarter for Zoe. She turned in her paper early because she has a full schedule of social justice activities for the coming weeks. Janine and Zoe keep talking with no success. Janine genuinely thinks she can be of help to Zoe, but the professor’s condescension drives the student further away. For Zoe, a teacher’s power over a student mirrors the oppression that incites revolution.

The inflammatory rhetoric leads to betrayal and brutality at the end of the Act One. The second act reveals how both parties have suffered, but opportunities for reconciliation keep receding like the water beneath Tantalus’ lips.

Raevyn Ferguson as Zoe and Jodi Stockton as Janine were superb in their roles. Both characters were portrayed fairly. Neither was a straw woman set up to fail. The characters’ emotional journeys were fully believable and led to powerful climaxes and lingering sadness over the gap between them.

Scenic and sound designer Patrick Huber gave Janine an imposing office that reflects her power over students. On one side was a sturdy desk in front of a large, well-filled bookcase. On the other side was a Gothic arched window. Two steps led downstage to a sitting area with chairs and a table on an oriental rug.

This office was larger than most professors would have, but Huber had a lot of room to fill on the Grandel Theatre’s thrust stage. Cameron Jamarr’s insightful direction used this space adroitly.

—Gerry Kowarsky, 2026

Photo by Patrick Huber
From the left, Raevyn Ferguson as Zoe and Jodi Stockton as Janine in “The Niceties.”