‘Confederates’ flags some thorny issues

The events of “Confederates” could be in tomorrow’s paper — incendiary photos with a Confederate flag threaten a promising presidential campaign — but Suzanne Bradbeer’s play, which opened Saturday, July 16, in its world premiere at TheatreWorks, is so well constructed that it’s just as timeless as it is timely.

Part comedy, part thriller and part morality play, “Confederates” follows three characters who are all so complex — all flawed and stubborn but with deeply relatable moral centers — that the show feels as if it belongs to each of them in turn.

Stephanie has had to eschew sentiment to get where she is — typing all the time, and playing poker with her bosses when she isn’t — but Lawrence makes her character’s strength of feeling come through in offbeat ways: sheer volume and speed, an ingenuous but instantly regretted leap onto her young co-worker’s hotel bed.

At first, all he wants is his own seat at the poker table, and he’s willing to finagle it from Stephanie any way he can: invading the ladies’ room, flirting, showing her a picture of his young daughter.

Prioleau makes clear that Will is so used to winning people over with his charm or his talent that he’s never before had to ask himself whether the ends — getting a scoop, furthering his career, hopefully becoming the next Karl Fleming — justifies a means that makes someone upset with him.

To what extent can whites claim it as a legitimate symbol of heritage and pride when for blacks it stands for slavery, centuries of institutionalized hate, oppression and murder?

Or is it just celebrity gossip — gossip whose publication would probably haunt Maddie and her family for the rest of their lives — that Will and Stephanie want to report on only because of the pressure of the 24-hour news cycle?

Under the direction of Lisa Rothe, Bradbeer’s script has not an ounce of fat; even the show’s set changes communicate the flurry of activity, the whirl of interruptions and chance encounters of the campaign trail.