ajhlovestheatre

BURNT-UP LOVE

written and directed by Ché Walker

Finborough Theatre, London – until 23 November 2024

https://finboroughtheatre.co.uk/production/burnt-up-love/

Normally the information that the author, director and leading actor of a new play are all one and the same person, is enough to set alarm bells ringing. But Ché Walker is no ordinary multidisciplinary artist, and Burnt-Up Love, his latest tranche of urban grit suffused with poetry, is no ordinary play.

Walker plays Mac, newly released from a twenty year prison stretch and on a mission to find his daughter, whose image as a laughing toddler on a photo pinned to his cell wall, was a rare source of light in an otherwise grim existence. Both as actor and writer, Walker invests Mac with a certain stoic dignity and nihilistic wit. There’s power in his stillness and a sense of a warning in the matter-of-fact delivery. It’s an impressive performance, so centred and focused it barely feels like acting.

Joanne Marie Mason plays daughter Scratch, all grown up now and with a roster of wrongdoings to her name that rivals those of her dear old dad. There’s a poignant contrast between the imaginary highfalutin careers her father mentally maps out for her, and the rather more pragmatic, predominantly illegal lifestyle she’s actually leading. Mason is astonishing, energised and unpredictable as she pivots between snarling aggression and the fight-or-flight fear of a cornered animal, and suggesting an inner life full of unanswered questions and infinite hurt. 

Neither Walker as playwright nor Mason attempt to sentimentalise or soften Scratch’s cruelty or frequently alarming behaviour, but it’s not hard to imagine the cues that set her on this hard-scrabble life trajectory. Her on-off lover, petty criminal Jayjayjay (excellent Alice Walker, persuasively multi-layered and sympathetic) describes her as having a glow, in common with other people not long for this world, which Mason fully embodies.

Ché Walker’s writing is extraordinary: foul-mouthed and brutal yet with a poetic lyricism that takes the breath away. His people speak in an expletive strewn stream-of-consciousness elevated by a unique command of language, they could have come off any urban street where there’s a pervasive sense of threat, but are simultaneously vivid theatrical creations.

His own production helps considerably with that. If the themes of nature vs nurture, and the immense difficulties of ex-convicts, rudderless and stigmatised, to keep from re-offending, aren’t particularly original, the staging truly is. Straightforward delivery of the words suddenly, seamlessly segues into expressive choreography (striking work by Billy Merlin). Uchenna Ngwe and Sheila Atim have provided a rapturous soundtrack with overtones of classical and urban dance, and Juliette Demoulin’s plain black box set is lit exclusively with candles and hand held torches. At one point sparklers whoosh and slice through the jet black air. As shows at the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse repeatedly demonstrate, candlelight is astonishingly effective at providing not just atmosphere but also focus and emphasis, and so it proves again here were faces are suddenly thrown into dramatic shadow, an entire human body can disappear for the duration of a scene or the blowing out of a flame makes a potent statement. Fire and darkness run through the text, so this method of lighting is a perfect metaphor.

The visual murk and aural assaults, verbal and musical, lend a ritualistic tone to this seventy minute drama that lingers in the memory long after the brief playing time. Realistically, I’m not sure I could have coped with this trawl through a dangerous, grimy underbelly of city life being any longer than it is. Some of the descriptive passages are wince-makingly graphic, and Walker doesn’t give us anyone to truly root for, but Burnt-Up Love remains a memorable, powerful piece of work.