ajhlovestheatre

THIS BITTER EARTH

by Harrison David Rivers

directed by Billy Porter 

Soho Theatre, London – until 26 July 2025

running time: 90 minutes no interval 

https://sohotheatre.com/events/this-bitter-earth/

First produced in San Francisco in 2017 and previously seen two years ago on the London fringe, Harrison David Rivers’ two hander, taking its title from the soulful Dinah Washington song classic, is simultaneously a love story, a response to civil unrest in the United States, and a meditation on the nature of multiracial relationships. In Billy Porter’s dynamic new staging, it’s compulsive viewing, sometimes very funny, but also thematically rich with cauldrons of fury and unease simmering just beneath it’s entertaining surface.

Jesse (Omari Douglas) is a Black playwright from a working class background – he’s smart, sensitive, spiky, self-sufficient – while his white boyfriend Neil (Alexander Lincoln, in an entrancing stage debut) is a trust fund baby but also an ardent activist particularly active in the Black Lives Matter movement. Rivers sets This Bitter Earth in the America of 2012-2015 at a time of a series of heavily publicised murders of young African American men such as Travyvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner (the last two by police personnel), and lights the dramatic touch paper by making Neil far more agitated and impassioned, on the surface at least, than Jesse about these grievous injustices.

It’s a compelling brew, written in dialogue that’s snappy, sharp but drenched in deep feeling. It treads some of the same territory as Matthew López’s The Inheritance as two smart gay men watch with disbelief as America votes in Trump (first time round) and the impassioned rows between the pair are similarly engrossing. It’s hard to imagine it better acted than it is here by Douglas and Lincoln, who mine the text for every ounce of anger, pathos, joy and frustration. They’re also combustibly sexy together with a relaxed chemistry that feels entirely natural, but also serves as a twisting knife when the relationship goes tragically asunder in ways that come as a nasty surprise but don’t feel inorganic, unfortunately.

Few actors can marry flamboyance with intellect the way Douglas does, and his Jesse is at once defensive but loving, a soul that finally finds a place to rest at least for a little time. Apart from a misjudged indiscretion following the Baltimore race riots of 2015, Neil, as written, is a bit of a unicorn, a rich, intelligent young man with liberal parents and a social conscience to put most people to shame. Lincoln is such a sincere, magnetic presence, and such a good actor, that you buy into him completely, even though he is markedly less well written than the other character.

The script loops frequently back round to the couple being attacked in the street after a night in a gay bar, and the same portion of dialogue is repeated but each time with different emphasis until finally the outcome of this hideous moment is realised. It’s powerful storytelling and if it doesn’t quite have the emotional punch one might hope for, that may be because the pace of Porter’s otherwise excellent production is so fast that the audience doesn’t always have time to breathe.

Punctuated with blasts of music and slick, striking projections, the show plays out on a predominantly bare stage under a neon sign proclaiming ‘Take Care Of Your Blessings’, words from the poet Essex Hemphill which take on more significance as the evening progresses. Rivers doesn’t stick to a linear timeline, which can be challenging in terms of placing where the characters are at any given moment, but the performances are so engaging and detailed that one’s concentration is amply rewarded. He doesn’t flinch from conveying the particular obstacles inherent in a biracial relationship where the two partners come come from radically different socio-economic backgrounds, but he invests their union with as much love as unease, so the protagonists are very easy to root for.

This Bitter Earth strays briefly into Hallmark Cards territory at the end (cue projections of rolling clouds and a beatific, heavenly light, as the audience are invited to vocalise their feelings) which feels slightly at odds with the meaty drama and acidic comedy that has gone before. It’s a small misstep though in an otherwise terrific piece of theatre, that succeeds in marrying the personal and the political in one neat but satisfyingly thought provoking package. It feels entirely appropriate that this is running during Pride month, but theatre this good deserves to be on all year round.