by It was a week of pugilistic theatre. Three more or less political dramas, which encourage talk more than physical action, make punk, make jokes and argue. To different effect.
Flashing and poking (there’s a lot of that), Slave Play which arrives in London after breaking Broadway. In the weeks leading up to opening night, the then prime minister, Rishi Sunak, criticized its author, Jeremy O Harris, for naming two productions specifically for black audiences. I don’t agree. Especially since one side-effect of the main aim of “black” performances – to excite an audience normally absent from the stalls – has the incidental effect of making me a white woman (which, incidentally, I am not , banned from these nights, but not specially invited) understand how welcome everyone is. In 2020/21, 93% of audiences in Arts Council-funded theaters were white.
Harris, who wrote Slave Play At Yale in 2018, he has said he wants audiences to “leave feeling weird”. In fact, I have rarely seen a show that left me so cold – its incitement so clear, its speech often heavy – but so alive with questions afterwards. A great shock, suggested in the title, will be given by the information about the basic premise of the play, which follows. Three couples, all with one black or mixed-race partner, and one white, engage in “antebellum sex therapy”: plantation scenes – pantaloons and “isn’t massa coming home soon?” – perform actions, followed by a therapeutic discussion, designed to find out why the black characters are no longer being awakened by their partners. They are policed by two therapists, one black, one white, who use the sessions to examine their own relationships in language stiff with happy jargon.
Related: ‘White supremacy was not hidden from me’: Jeremy O Harris on bringing Slave on Broadway to the UK
The dialogues are so loaded, so obvious, that they drag down the play. However they leave more subtle after-effects, raising questions about how to distinguish between “reality” and whether a power imbalance is necessary for sexual excitement. Racism is cut to the last point here, but its traditional application of male-female encounters is elegantly referenced. Kit Harington (apparently in awe of being a beggar) explains that he’s horrified at the thought of calling his wife when she’s his “queen”. Although I was dominated more by the trance study like a power play in Harris Daddy two years ago, he does all this Slave Play even listen.
As with the tender explosions of Fisayo Akinade, a charming actor with a sense of humor that reaches out, his questioning edge and openness turned into a quick attention. He makes you believe that he was once enraptured; it makes you believe that the rapture was caught. Skillfully partnered with James Cusati-Moyer, from the US production, a man who reliably refuses to say he’s white, he generates complexity with every complex, evasive gesture. Crucially, this couple gives diagrammatic drama a sudden human beat.
Over the past year, dramatic last-minute replacements have resulted in the number of actors withdrawing
The Donmar has a tradition of producing plays about poor American citizens on the fringes. Tim Sheader’s first season as artistic director is hoping for a follow-up: he has just announced that Lynette Linton, who directed so brilliantly at Lynn Nottage’s, will. Sweat and Clyde’sNottage’s great stage Personal Clothing. Meanwhile, Skeleton Crewas part of Dominique Morisseau’s The Detroit Project trilogy, it adds to the theme.
In a factory that is about to close, a man keeps a gun in his locker; a woman sleeps in her car, after gambling away from her home; a pregnant woman dreams of a better future; a young supervisor is proud to “wear a button” to work.
This is a remarkable portrait of hard lives. But although it turns sharply at times, the dialogue is often long-winded: why are characters, who have worked together for many years, carefully explaining their previous lives? While Ultz’s design – metal lockers, iron beams, loud lights – is strong, Matthew Xia’s production expands beyond drives; very few unexpected results. It is an example of suffering and hope. An even more impressive drama can be seen below, heard in the soundscape specified by Morisseau and completed by Nicola T Chang. A roll of industrial boom, crashes, hip wires rule the environment, enter the bloodstream. In a beautiful moment the pregnant woman, hand on her stomach, listens to the silence from the factory floor. The sound of a refrigerator is like the singing of birds.
Over the past year, the number of actors who have withdrawn has resulted in some great last-minute replacements. Next week a new actor will take the lead straight after press night in Christopher Hampton’s new play, Visit from an Unknown Woman, at Hampstead. Last year, Patsy Ferran learned the leading role in Streetcar Named Desire in days. Now Justine Mitchell is in Alma Mater after the departure of Lia Williams due to illness. She lit the evening.
Kendall Feaver’s play is over-the-top and over-the-top, but it turns out well. Essentially an argument between different forms of feminism – today, post-#MeToo, and a generation earlier – it highlights a girl’s experience of non-consensual sex in her first week at a traditional (ie, male-heavy) university. You might think there was little new to say about the ‘gender’ debate when the two are drunk-counts-as-rape, but Feaver’s dissection keeps twisting, balancing and exchanging sympathies.
Liv Hill is just as the rather white Paige, the student victim who wants to be in charge. Phoebe Campbell is very sharp as the older girl who takes up her cause: perceptive about micro-aggressions, both smart and mad as she throws down the prevailing culture. Susannah Wise gives the case to the accused boy neatly (something you wouldn’t expect to hear). Mitchell is great. As the first master of the college (note the name of the play), a former journalist who seduces her students by wearing trainers for formal dinners, she is free-spirited, eloquent and sweary; she is also self-intoxicated. A reminder of the pleasures and dangers of charisma.
Star ratings (out of five)
Slave Play ★★★
Skeleton Crew ★★★
Alma Mater ★★★★
-
Slave Play at the Noël Coward Theatre, London, until 21 September
-
Skeleton Crew which is at the Donmar Warehouse, London, until 24 August
-
Alma Mater at the Almeida, London, until 20 July
