by It wasn’t much of a surprise when Jeremy O. Harris’ 2018 production Slave Play transferred to Broadway less than a year after its premiere. I was heartbroken when it premiered at the 198-seat New York Theater Workshop, which critics described as “promptly provocative, wildly transgressive and all trippy” and “wildly imaginative”. The show was extended and tickets were sold out for every performance.
Not long after, when it opened on Broadway for a limited run of 17 weeks, the reviews continued to be as interesting as the premise of the show: Slave Play about three interracial couples who go to an antebellum (Civil War era ) sex therapy (costumes). included) when the black party stops being attracted to the white party. Their conversations touch on everything from desire, power, trauma and academic rigor – and the result is a transcendent, truly inspiring piece.
Now Harris’ play is transferring to the West End, which will run at the Noël Coward Theater from June 29 to September 21, starring Game of Thrones’ Kit Harington. The cast and content indicate that it is likely to be one of the most talked about plays of the year. Here’s everything else you need.
What about it?
Written while 35-year-old Harris – who is black and queer – is still at the Yale School of Drama, Slave Play is about three couples undergoing a type of period drama sex therapy. Black partners no longer feel sexually attracted to their white partners, and Harris looks at the reasons behind this. This exploration delves deep into the psyche of the characters, all of whom have varying degrees of physical and emotional dysfunction.
Amazingly, in some scenes both partners are wearing the same clothes that their ancestors might have been wearing during the Plantation Era, and the antebellum therapy involves scenes where they play slaves and slave owners shouting orders and then they have sex.
“He abandons the historical fantasies of a Southern gentleman scrubbed of the horrors of slavery that are firmly embedded in American culture – in monuments, textbooks, movies and so on – by replacing them with docile fantasies with uber-examinations cerebral accompanying them. the consequences of racism,” explained one critic.
Another said: “Slave Play forces both its characters and the audience to ask: What does it really mean to be black in a relationship with a white partner? Does the history of slavery continue to influence sex and power between these groups, and how? Who is responsible, if so?”
How was the play received?
Reviews of Harris’ play have been polarized. The subject matter was striking, thought provoking and brilliant for some: “Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play has had no more seismic impact on any recent theatrical work,” said the Los Angeles Times.
Nominated for 12 Tony Awards, Harris, who had not yet graduated when Slave Play received its Off Broadway premiere, quickly became one of America’s most popular writers (in 2021, he portrayed Zola on A24 and co-wrote, picking up the Independent Spirit Award nomination for best screenplay).
But Slave Play has received some backlash. In its 2018 review, The Guardian argued that while the play aimed to spotlight white sexual fantasies, it could, “provide yet another platform for white people to view black bodies subjected to physical violence and sexual while claiming themselves at the same time. the back of the “lasting” experience.”
Others agreed, or protested, and there was even a Change.org petition to stop the play, with the creator writing, “This was one of the most disrespectful displays of anti-Black sentiment ever disguised as art as I have ever seen. As a Black woman, I was deeply offended and traumatized by the graphic images mixed with laughter from a predominantly white audience.”
“The writer and director of the play, even as Queer Black men, were visceral in their portrayal of slavery, Black sexuality, and they specifically target Black women. Slavery and the pervasive consequences that still affect the descendants of US chattel slaves is not funny and I am very disappointed that everyone involved thought this was an appropriate tool to challenge that status quo on race relations. ” The petition has received 6,433 signatures.
But for others, the best theater provokes intense discussion and is more than the task Harris has fulfilled: “The best plays are not about empathizing with the oppressed; they are about to accept our connection with the oppressors as well,” said one critic. “With apostolate but also with love, Slave Play allows us all to see ourselves in the mire of race in America now.”
Black Out performance controversies
Slave Play has also hit headlines in the UK after announcing two nights of its three-month run at the Noël Coward Theater as Black Out performances. These are performances to which only a black-identified audience is invited. And, although no one can be legally barred from attending, non-Black theater fans don’t usually go to these special events.
The grassroots movement Harris is said to have sparked – the first Black Out night in the US took place in September 2019 – has seen Black Out nights become more regular there. With three-quarters of Broadway audiences (reportedly in 2018) being white, the idea is to expressly create a space that is more welcoming to a diverse audience.
But in the United Kingdom, where 93 percent of National Portfolio Organization theater audiences (funded by the Arts Council) were white in 2021/21, these Black Out nights were frowned upon. Former Standard culture editor Nancy Durrant wrote about the matter for the Standard last May, after Theater Royal Stratford East scheduled a Black Out performance of her play Tambo & Bones.
“I don’t think I would call this an act of racism,” she said. “I think I would give it to members of a group who are undoubtedly under pressure to experience something together that they have done in their minds, and explore the issues surrounding it without worrying about offending or hurting others. the feelings of members of the community. a group that, again without a doubt, put pressure on themselves or their ancestors.”
This time, however, perhaps because of the high profile of Slave Play, the issue became a national issue with Downing Street in mind. Arts centers are receiving public funding,” said official spokesperson Rishi Sunak. “But it would clearly be wrong and divisive to restrict audiences on the basis of race.”
Harris told BBC Sounds: “For me, as someone who wants and wants to have black and brown people in the theatre, who comes from a working-class background, who wants people to feel that he doesn’t pretend that it’s theatre. Instead for them, it is necessary to give them a radical invitation to come in with initiatives that say, ‘You are invited. You specifically.”
What did Jeremy O. Harris say?
Jeremy O. Harris has spoken about carving out new spaces for black artists in theatre.
“It’s very humbling and exciting that a work like this is going to Broadway, but it’s also raw,” he told the Guardian. “It’s a lot of different emotions for me because there’s a history on Broadway and I’m not really a part of it, or people like me aren’t really a part of it. You can probably count on your hand, your right hand, the number of black men or women who have had successful careers on Broadway.”
Speaking to ES Magazine last week, he said: “The theater is my religion. Growing up I read so many plays. And now, like some monk, writing plays for me is like writing little prayers to myself.”
Meanwhile, Robert O’Hara, who has directed all versions of Slave Play, and will direct the West End adaptation, has previously admitted that the play is “extremely inspiring”.
Kit Harington stars
Kit Harington, the 37-year-old Game of Thrones star, is one of the frontrunners in the West End run. Before that, he played roles on stage in the National Theatre’s War Horse, The Vote and Henry V at the Donmar and Doctor Faustus in the West End.
He will be joined by Fisayo Akinade (Cucumber), Aaron Heffernan (Brassic), and Olivia Washington (I’m a Virgin and Denzel Washington’s daughter), and original Broadway cast members James Cusati-Moyer, Chalia La Tour, Annie McNamara, and Irene Sofia Lucio .
But Harris has criticized the way some theaters use celebrities to draw in audiences.
“It takes away from great theater because people treat it like a Disney World attraction, where the drama is the backdrop to the fun of seeing their loved one in front of them,” Harris said. who explained that he agreed to cast Harington because “Kit was saying ‘I don’t want this to be “Kit Harington in Slave Play”, this is an ensemble play and I’m not even the lead.
“He knows the weight of his name and how that could be a distraction, if we allowed it to be.”
Slave Play, Noel Coward Theatre, 29 June to 21 September; noelcowardtheatre.co.uk
