How to write a provocative play: Your central characters are David and Jonathan, gay college students in the 1980s, at the height of the AIDS crisis. David invites Jonathan home to meet his parents in Southern Maryland — a family home that hasn’t changed much for generations, including the arrangements for the domestic servants. “Mary,” a world-premiere Goodman commission written by Thomas Bradshaw, is now in previews in the Goodman’s Owen Theatre; Mary is the name of the African-American family servant who lives with her husband, Elroy, in the estate’s old slave quarters. In Bradshaw’s social satire, the judgments cut every which way, including from Mary back toward David and Jonathan’s homosexuality. Nobody gets to feel comfortable. In previews; opens Monday and runs through March 6 at the Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St.; $10-$42; 312-443-3800, goodmantheatre.org
