by West End theaters will stage shows for all-black audiences to ensure ticket holders are free from the “white gaze”.
Slave Play, starring Kit Harington, who plays Jon Snow in the Game of Thrones, will open at London’s Noel Coward Theater in June for a three-month run with two performances specifically for “black-identified audiences”.
The events, known as “Black Nights Out”, aim to create a racially homogenous environment “free from the white gaze” in a move branded “simplistic and racist” by critics.
The play by Jeremy O Harris, the US playwright, is moving from a successful run on Broadway, which had received 12 Tony nominations. The production features interracial couples undergoing sex therapy that requires them to role play as slaves and masters.
A petition in the United States called for the production to be canceled and called it “anti-Black sentiment masquerading as art” because of its treatment of sex during slavery, particularly those who suffered black women mightily. The Noel Coward Theater has a 16 and over age advisor for the play.
It is understood that the show would achieve an “all-black” audience by distributing invitation-only tickets to black community groups, rather than turning away whites, which would have been a legal problem.
Two shows are scheduled for July and September 17, and the play’s official website explains: “Black nights are about creating a purposeful environment where black-identified audiences can experience the performing arts , filming, and discussing it. athletic and cultural spaces – free from the white gaze.”
Racism-specific audiences or “Black Out Nights” were invented by Harris and auditioned for the 2019 US productions of Slave Play.
The initiative’s website explains how this was achieved “legally”, stating that “we have not banned or prohibited anyone from attending Black Out performances”.
Previous performances of “Black Out” on Broadway have been organized as private, invitation-only events.
Tickets were withdrawn from general sale and were only available for purchase using a special code. This code was sent to organizations, student groups, and other organizations that identified a public relations firm as being connected to the black community.
Amy Gallagher, the mayoral candidate for the London Social Democratic Party, has criticized the plans to introduce this practice in the West End.
She said: “This is definitely racist. Excluding anyone on the basis of skin color in this way is racist.
“They seem to be returning to a critical definition of racism on race theory where, according to Ibram X Kendi, we need immediate discrimination, against white people, to make up for past discrimination.”
She said: “They say they want to be free from the ‘white gaze’ which of course means white people, but they won’t go so far as to say white people would be illegal.
“This is a very simplistic and racist approach in general. We have a large Asian and mixed race population. Would they be encouraged or not encouraged to attend?”
Mr Harris explained his reasoning for black-identified viewers on the BBC’s World at One, saying the policy does not mean white people are “uninvited” and that “people have to be radically invited into a space with for them to know that they belong to them”.
He added that poor people and black people have been told “they don’t belong in the theater” and his initiative is an attempt to allow them to “feel safe with a lot of other black people”, as “black audiences and audiences respond white with things differently”.
The idea of a black-only performance has already been tried in London, when white people were persuaded not to attend the Theater Royal Stratford East’s production of the race satire Tambo & Bones.
The intention behind the one-off performance in 2023 was to create a “safe, private” space to allow “black-identified audiences” to explore racial issues “free from the white gaze”.
It was criticized by MPs at the time, including Damian Green, who called it “misleading” and “sinister”.
The play’s producers said: “There will be two performances of Slave Play on Black Out nights and more details about these performances and how to buy tickets will be released in due course. No one shall be prevented or prevented from attending any performance of Slave Play.”
The Noel Coward Theater has been contacted for comment.
