ajhlovestheatre

SLAVE PLAY

by Jeremy O Harris

directed by Robert O’Hara

Noël Coward Theatre, London – until 21 September 2024

https://slaveplaylondon.com

Black writers have seldom been as well represented in London theatre as they are at the moment. The National has Katori Hall’s acclaimed The Hot Wing King in preview and is about to move Clint Dyer and Roy Williams’s Death Of England plays cycle to Sohoplace, while Faith Omole’s My Father’s Fable at the Bush and the Donmar’s UK premiere for Dominique Morisseau’s Skeleton Crew are two of the finest, funniest, most satisfying nights of drama on any current stage. They’re joined in melanised excellence by this import from New York, which enjoyed Broadway seasons either side of the pandemic, was nominated for a record number of Tony awards for a straight play, and for many London theatregoers will be the biggest must-see of the summer, if only to discover what all the fuss is about.

Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play explodes into the West End as a noisome, wild, confrontational thing, hauling taboos into the unforgiving light, examining prejudices and kinks with rare, ripe humour, buckets of vitriol, and a humanity and intellectual rigour that take the breath away. I can imagine it’s possible to be offended, confused or shocked by this unique, unforgettable fusion of coruscating social, sexual and spiritual commentary, high camp and sheer fuck-you (literally at times) outrageousness, but remaining indifferent to it is surely not an option.

The antebellum-inspired opening sections appear calculated to wrong-foot and potentially upset viewers, regardless of colour, age or sexual preference. A mixed race straight couple Kaneisha and Jim (Olivia Washington and Kit Harington) act out a preposterous slave-and-master scene: the wayward accents suggest that something is a little off, an impression reinforced by the anachronistic music and Kaneisha witheringly pointing out that the fruit Jim has provided as a prop is in fact a cantaloupe not a watermelon. Next up is an older white lady (Tony nominee Annie McNamara) in ringlets and hoop skirt (until she isn’t) sexually humiliating her manservant (Aaron Heffernan), and finally a violent bi-racial gay coupling (Fisayo Akinade, and James Cusati-Moyer, another Tony nominee for his work in the Broadway original) atop an old cart amidst cotton bales. It’s all provocative, often riotously funny, and constantly on the verge of tipping over into something deeply troubling, although Harris makes us wait for that.

The title “slave play” turns out to have more than one meaning as the piece explores multiple themes as well as the relationship between people of different skin colours. It interrogates sexual fantasy and how potentially damaging it can be when the deepest, darkest ones are acted out. It looks with scorn on the ‘white saviour complex’, and has some very unsettling insights into interracial unions. It is mindful of Black history, but not didactically so, and inherited trauma, and savagely satirises therapy culture. The central, slightly overlong, scene is a particularly outlandish couples therapy session presided over by a pair of enthusiastic but thunderingly crass practitioners (Irene Sofia Lucio and Chalia La Tour, holdovers from the Broadway cast and both amusing if lacking in nuance).

Some of the grievances and revelations that come to light in this section are fascinating, and Harris’s writing is unflinching, witty and brutal. It also showcases some terrific acting, especially from Akinade whose simultaneous breakdown and breakthrough is really moving, and from Cusati-Moyer opposite him as the bewildered partner forced to abandon his flamboyant histrionics and really listen. Heffernan delivers nuanced, deliciously funny but also deeply touching work as the sexy but blunt mixed race youngster who has a startling revelation over how much his sexual identity and race are intertwined. McNamara is great value, if hardly subtle, as his older lover, working herself up into paroxysms of middle class white guilt.

Given how much Slave Play has on its mind, it’s a remarkably unpreachy piece; Harris never tells us what to think. This proves especially challenging in the final, very disturbing sequence between the first couple we saw. It’s an apotheosis of the ‘play’ that kicks off the play, but so much more. It’s sexual but not necessarily sexy, and it’s unclear whether we are witnessing the relationship imploding or a genuine breakthrough; either way it is tremendously uncomfortable to watch, and Harington and Washington play it full throttle, unsparingly and brilliantly.

If Robert O’Hara’s production seems deliberately rough round the edges (set pieces judder haltingly on, some of the acting in the central therapy scene reads as broader than it might be, lighting and sound effects jar and alarm), that feels apiece with Harris’s text which eschews multiple established tenets of playwriting to create something unique and vital. Anyway, there’s nothing about Slave Play that suggests it should ever be a smooth theatrical journey.

There’s no linear storytelling and no easy answers. Even Clint Ramos’s mirrored set feels like a provocation: it confronts us in the audience (with our prejudices? our proclivities?) and it gives the characters nowhere to hide. Slave Play dazzles, sears and confounds; it also makes the current theatrical landscape a considerably more stimulating place.