“Unarmed, carrying the weight of skin”: Across color lines, three women bring racial dialogue to Grinnell

When Heather Lobban-Viravong, a young black woman, moved from New York to Iowa for a one-year fellowship for minority scholars at Grinnell College, she was matched with Jan Gross, a white tenured professor of French. Their meeting 25 years ago and the friendship that grew across racial difference is the subject of “More Than Skin Deep,” a two-hour play that sparked lively discussion Monday night at the Grinnell Middle School auditorium.

What began as a handful of poems and personal reflections has since evolved into a full-length performance. The script, crafted by Lesley Delmenico, associate professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the College, explores the unlikely friendship and thorny racial dynamics between Lobban-Viravong and Gross. 

“What’s important to us, and this is what I think we want to emphasize, is that our work is not designed to be academic. It’s designed to work in the community and develop opportunities for people to have conversations,” Gross said. 

The play opens with tension—the two women do not click. Even as their friendship develops, race remains unspoken. It takes a road trip to Washington, D.C. and a racially charged police stop en route to Gross’s daughter’s college graduation for the simmering realities of identity, power and visibility to finally come into focus. Lobban-Viravong is accused of speeding. Gross, seated beside her, talks them out of the situation.

“My hypervisibility as a young black woman–it felt like I wore a placard on campus, in town, everywhere,” Lobban-Viravong said. 

Post-performance, the audience is invited into dialogue through the Listening Project, a Grinnell College initiative aimed at fostering community connection and cross-cultural understanding. 

If the play centers on the two women, Lobban-Viravong and Gross say it’s this final act of conversation that delivers resonance to any audience member willing to reflect on their own identity with race.

“For us, the most meaningful part of the whole experience is the conversations that come afterwards, hearing what people are sharing and what they’ve learned potentially, and how they’re reflecting,” Lobban-Viravong said.