IT'S MORE IMPORTANT TO BE DECENT.

A recent review of David Lindsay-Abaire's Good People suggests "The American theater rediscovers class."  Presumably that's about theater for money, as theater for tenure has been all about Race and Class and Gender for a long time.  The message of the play, however, might have an interpretation other than the Theoretically Correct version.

Mike’s young, African-American wife—a literature professor at Boston University—first mistakes Margie for one of the party-rental crew come to pick up tables and glasses. As soon as Kate realizes her mistake, her social graciousness kicks in. She invites Margie to stay for wine and cheese—much to Mike’s dismay—and even eventually offers her a job as their daughter’s babysitter, a prospect that her husband rejects out of hand.

The Theoretically Correct perspective is one in which people who live in glass bubbles don't understand how others live.

Class perceptions, stereotyping and divisions permeate every scene and almost every moment. Good People is a telling portrait of “miserable” poor white working-class Americans encountering the world of the “comfortable” professional class (words used throughout the play).

Perhaps so, but the attitude shift of the representative of the Coastal Elite on discovering she is interacting with another representative of the Coastal Elite reminds me of a story, "Boil the Best Tea!", that I read long ago.  An abbot who forgets his manners learns a lesson that persists to this day.

Or, as the Pennsylvania Railroad put it, "it's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice."