What is a ‘black play’? Has any drama ever been described as a ‘white play’? Should it have been? The hot topics of race and cultural stereotyping fizz and dart about this lively and innovative piece of work by and starring Arinzé Kene, which is part play, part gig and part spoken word event. It’s wholly compelling as, like the similarly provocative An Octoroon, it worries at what it means to be a black playwright today.
The narrative divides, not always clearly, into two strands. The first concerns a violent incident on a night bus and its unspooling aftermath, complete with mournful meditation on the hurtling gentrification of London.
The second, full of pep and vigour, features Arinzé’s friends and family popping up with doubtful comments on his work. It’s derided as, variously, a ‘n***** play’, a ‘modern minstrel show’, ‘black trauma’ and ‘urban safari jungle sh*t’, written to cater to white expectations of black lives. Emails from his irate older sister are read, winningly, by a young girl in school uniform.
Form slips and slides around, anchored only by Kene’s powerful central performance and two onstage musicians (Adrian McLeod, Shiloh Coke), who double splendidly as Kene’s vexed friends Raymond and Donna, given the best line of the evening: ‘We never get a cycling-through-the-city montage in films’.
Omar Elerian’s production bursts with life, as well as orange balloons, although occasional bewilderment sent me scuttling to the script for clarification. Misty is surely destined to be a big popular hit.
Until April 21
