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Post by nash16 on Dec 2, 2019 17:39:40 GMT
Caught this on Friday. Went through every sort a feeling, but I have to say the major one was boredom, in the centre sections.
The play is split into 4 parts, with only one closing of the curtains after the first one.
What starts out as a Cosby Show light comedy, moves into a different territory. The focus is race, and expressly race in America.
I say that because that’s what the playwright is openly targeting.
Aware we have our own racial issues in the UK, what’s odd about this one is we are asked as an audience whether we feel we are aware of being racist/of the space we take up. This is carried out in a sort of End of Inheritance Part 1 moment, but weirdly seems to come out of nowhere, and doesn’t feel earned or deserved. Yet at the same time it is kind of moving. (For some people literally).
without spoiling it, half the audience partook in what was asked/demanded of them, whilst the other half didn’t. We didn’t, and discussing it with friends afterwards it was a mix of “for joe public rather than regular theatre goers, that moment must be novel/fun”, and also the fact that you very quickly realise you’re being manipulated into a reaction. And a physical reaction at that. And that that reaction (I’m trying so hard not to spoil what happens lol) is seemingly to suggest that those taking part are racists, or are unaware of the space they, as non black people, take up.
It certainly gave us lots to chat about afterwards, but less about race, and move about the ethics of the play itself.
The performances are good. Needham fans will get a few laughs, but little beyond that.
An odd one. I think you’ll either be profoundly moved or a bit annoyed.
You can totally see why Kwame wanted to put it on. But we felt if they’d really have wanted to make white audiences feel uncomfortable then they should have asked the National to do it and see how many people “took part” in the ending there.
V intrigued to hear others thoughts.
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Post by partytentdown on Dec 2, 2019 17:56:34 GMT
Oh god. I hate audience participation. I like to sit in the dark and watch until the interval/end comes. Am I going to hate this?
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Post by nash16 on Dec 2, 2019 18:17:18 GMT
Oh god. I hate audience participation. I like to sit in the dark and watch until the interval/end comes. Am I going to hate this? Haha! Know how you feel. No, you very much get to decide how much you "participate". (The question is will you feel like a racist for not "participating"?) |
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Post by partytentdown on Dec 2, 2019 18:48:15 GMT
Oh god.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Dec 2, 2019 19:32:22 GMT
Sounds utterly appalling
But then I am never going to be keen on theatre that seeks to push an agenda. It is not what I seek from a night out. I know others are fine with it - but it isn't for me. No matter what the agenda.
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Post by foxa on Dec 2, 2019 19:46:18 GMT
Oh dear. I'm seeing this on Saturday.
I'm not very good at compelled anything.
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Post by david on Dec 2, 2019 19:51:17 GMT
An interesting read nash16. I’m watching it Saturday afternoon. Your review has certainly peaked my interest in this production. I’m normally up for anything involving audience participation so it could be an interesting afternoon at the YV. |
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Post by nash16 on Dec 2, 2019 21:22:54 GMT
Just to reiterate, the "interactive" bit is right at the end, and I'm sure most will find it very moving. And it is optional, even if it doesn't entirely feel that way. We didn't do as requested. Not because we didn't see or agree with the point that was being communicated, we just seemingly all chose not to.
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Post by foxa on Dec 2, 2019 21:54:38 GMT
It won the Pulitzer Prize for drama and I have found many of the winning plays ones I rated, including Sweat and The Flick, so that influenced my booking. And I heard it experiments with form, so that should be interesting. But, yeah, I'll have more to say once I've seen it.
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Post by partytentdown on Dec 2, 2019 22:19:52 GMT
I saw it. Most people joined in. Will write full review tomorrow. If that's even possible without spoilers.
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Post by profquatermass on Dec 3, 2019 17:11:30 GMT
I found it completely baffling and took the opportunity to leave during the audience participation. Was there actually a curtain call? I wonder if the audience in New York was more ethnically mixed than I one I saw it with...
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Post by couldileaveyou on Dec 3, 2019 17:49:31 GMT
could anyone explain in the spoiler tag what does audience partecipation involve?
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Post by nash16 on Dec 3, 2019 20:26:23 GMT
I found it completely baffling and took the opportunity to leave during the audience participation. Was there actually a curtain call? I wonder if the audience in New York was more ethnically mixed than I one I saw it with... No curtain call. They all gradually left, leaving us with our guilt/bewilderment. |
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Post by nash16 on Dec 3, 2019 20:34:15 GMT
could anyone explain in the spoiler tag what does audience partecipation involve? {Spoiler - click to view}
At the end of the play, the 4th wall is broken again and the youngest black performer enters the audience and requests/pleads that the white people in the audience leave their seats and go onto the stage so they can look out at how few black people are in the audience, and how white people unknowingly are oppressing black people by taking up such spaces in society.
You can choose to go up onstage or stay in your seats.
Her monologue continues for about 3-4minutes, after which she climbs the steps and leaves the space by the circle door.
The rest of the cast then leave.
There is no curtain call. |
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Post by couldileaveyou on Dec 3, 2019 21:09:51 GMT
could anyone explain in the spoiler tag what does audience partecipation involve? {Spoiler - click to view}
At the end of the play, the 4th wall is broken again and the youngest black performer enters the audience and requests/pleads that the white people in the audience leave their seats and go onto the stage so they can look out at how few black people are in the audience, and how white people unknowingly are oppressing black people by taking up such spaces in society.
You can choose to go up onstage or stay in your seats.
Her monologue continues for about 3-4minutes, after which she climbs the steps and leaves the space by the circle door.
The rest of the cast then leave.
There is no curtain call. Thank you! I'm going on Saturday and audience participation makes me cringe down to my very core. Sounds intriguing tho! |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2019 22:48:23 GMT
I loved it, but my job is about equality and justice. I’m trying to work out if the piece will convince anyone to change their view. Based on what I have seen on Twitter, and on here, I’m not sure it will.
It has made me think more about a topic I already think about a lot. I was sat next to the assistant AD who said that she was looking forward to the technical lock because it had changed a lot during previews. I think that people might ding the piece for not being technically perfect and that makes me a bit sad.
My sense is that everyone will focus on the ending because it is confronting and requires the audience to interact with the piece. I might be splitting hairs, but I am not sure it’s audience participation. It might actually be the opposite.
I’m really glad I saw this, am looking forward to reading the script and I would happily go see it again. I found it human, confronting, hard to watch, completely of its time, shocking and funny. It’s somewhat similar to Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette in terms of disrupting a form (although I don’t think the storytelling is as strong.)
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Post by Steve on Dec 6, 2019 2:14:00 GMT
I love a play that punches me in the brain so hard that I have no idea what to think. There's an excitement and a danger, to an EXPERIMENTAL play like this, that makes such a refreshing change from plays that seek to entertain and educate in less Brechtian, less confrontational, more conventional ways! I absolutely LOVED this, and I am certain that people will talk about this play for years to come, whether they liked it or not. Some spoilers follow. . . There's a reverie in Robert Townsend's revelatory 80's movie, "Hollywood Shuffle," in which he imagines compering a "Black Acting School," in which white teachers educate aspiring black actors in such useful lessons as "Jive Talk 101" and "How to walk black." The horror was that aspiring black actors got no opportunities unless they acquiesced in these white overlords' cliched, stereotypical and racist depictions of "black life." Some 30 years later, everything has changed, as opportunities and more truthful media depictions of all people and cultures have flourished. After all, and specifically in this case, the Young Vic has a BAME AD, this is a play by a BAME playwright, most of the actors in it are BAME, and tickets are as accessible as £10 each (the price I paid). And yet, the playwright questions everything about this ostensible progress in ways that are unnerving and incredibly thought-provoking! I'll say no more without spoiler tags, and just encourage anybody who has a ticket (or plans to buy one) to READ NO MORE about this play before they see it, as the surprises are worth it, even if in the moment you feel confounded, frustrated, or just plain uncomfortable. {Spoiler}
The show is in three parts:
In part 1, a black family interacts in predictable and stereotypical ways, and the temptation is to think the play is a bit crap. But then one of the characters calls out plays of the crap variety you're watching: ie comedy-infused family dramas where difficulties and confrontations play out, tensions rise, but eventually everything's a little bit better than before; and specifically here, the fractious family bond quite a bit through song and dance! If the playwright is so self-aware, you wonder, about the type of play she appears to be writing, what IS going on!!??
In part 2, the answer comes, as the family repeat all their actions of part 1, but miming, while a trivial and racist voice-over panel of white people discuss the action, as well as what race they'd like to be. The white panel are not so overtly racist and hostile that they can be instantly dismissed, but rather are incredibly trivial and inadvertently racist, so that their opinions about what race it would be more fun to be, and concerning the various actions in the play, are more biting for being so unintentionally and casually limiting and hurtful.
It's the white panel, (one of which is an acting favourite of mine, David Dawson, and one of which is an actor who has been growing on me for years, Matthew Needham - and both dazzle here too) who seem to be suggesting that Robert Townsend's "Black Acting School" is still open for business, all these years later, and that this very show may be put on by graduates of that school!
Now, I love watching singing and dancing by anybody, of any race, creed or culture. I loved it in "42nd Street," and I loved it when a bunch a middle aged drunk women were singing and dancing on the train on the way home last night. There's something communal and wonderful about singing and dancing, as a way of humans relating, that beats almost anything else, especially political discussions!
But when the white panel suggest that the singing and dancing in this play, in Part 1, has something to do with the actors' "blackness," that spoils all the fun. Now I'm thinking, is this singing and dancing inauthentic? Is it just a modern form of minstrelsy? Have I been partaking in that? Enjoying that?
I feel angry, and I sink into my chair upset and confused.
And that's the sign of a great play, a play that actually makes you think, and think hard about something!
On the one hand, I'm thinking, of course BAME people should not be depicted as more prone to singing and dancing than white people. On the other hand, I'm thinking, surely everyone should sing and dance, and if that means more depictions of white people singing and dancing to even things up, then that needs to happen, as long as authenticity is the watchword.
And I'm thinking, can this racist white panel be more right about this play than I am?
Whereupon, the play proceeds to destabilise just about everyone and everything in the play, and everyone watching it, to mock everyone and everything: even the heretofore little noticed prop food on the meticulously designed dining room table makes it's presence felt in a most aggressive and surreal way! Jackie Sibblies Drury seems to question everyone's ability to form a "fair view" about anything and everything, including HERSELF!
After all, is she not the one pandering to racial ideas about people more than anyone, by singling out a "white" audience? She must know that the audience is not a singular monstrous mass, but simply a bunch of individuals, whose skin colour would be irrelevant in a fair society, a society without racism.
The second part of the play culminates in a frenzied explosion of activity in which the racist white panel of commentators invade and populate the action! It's an astonishing, exciting and disturbing moment, and this affords Donna Banya, as the family's daughter, to give the most expressive, emotive and affecting performance, as someone who sees through the veil of fiction to feel the racist oppression of this stage invasion, which other actors blithely ignore, accepting these invaders as their (black) family members. Banya's increasing disquietude and horror is akin to that of the protagonist of the iconic race-horror movie, "Get Out," as he realises that there is a creeping racist trap surrounding him. In addition to Banya, I think Naana Agyei-Ampadu is terrific as the "feisty" and "sassy" sister/aunt who brings the noise, who may or may not be a racist stereotype of a black woman, but which performance is peerlessly effective and entertaining regardless.
In the third and last part of the play, something else happens again, to surprise and disturb some more. As someone who likes to imagine myself, when the theatre lights go out, as a genderless, raceless, ageless, empathetic pair of eyes, ready and willing to feel all human experience, this last part seemed to insist that the lights must stay on, and stay bright! I think Robert Townsend would love this play, and I think much in it owes him a debt of gratitude. 4 and a half stars, for being amazing and annoying in equal measure!!!  |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2019 7:56:42 GMT
What a read. Thank you for writing this.
I’m still thinking about the play today, I would see it again in a heartbeat. But the run has, I read on Twitter, completely sold out. I managed to tell a friend on Tuesday to get tickets, but she only found one night still on sale.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2019 10:55:52 GMT
Looks like they have just added some extra dates from 20th to 23rd Jan, loads of seats available for these!
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Post by showgirl on Dec 7, 2019 4:57:15 GMT
Looks like they have just added some extra dates from 20th to 23rd Jan, loads of seats available for these! I saw this when I was out yesterday but too late for me: I was sure I had booked this but couldn't find it in my diary or my email folder so had to book belatedly with little choice and no cheap seats left (I can't risk standing so the pot luck or whatever they call it at this venue is too risky.) That said, I'm really encouraged by the comments here and reviews and am looking forward to it. I've read everything above, including the spoilers as I genuinely don't mind knowing as much as possible and indeed sometimes need extra information to enlighten me as I can't always work out what is going on - though on this occasion it sounds as though that won't be an issue. |
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Post by andrew on Dec 7, 2019 16:48:18 GMT
I'll have to keep an eye out for returns, a lot of the dates show availability but it's a wheelchair seat. If there are any wheelchair using TB members, this is your moment!
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Post by david on Dec 7, 2019 17:37:32 GMT
Having been at today’s matinee, it’s a play that gave me plenty to think about over the 90 minutes and at times, particularly in the second scene left we wondering at times what was going on. Though it’s the plays conclusion with the audience participation element at the end that really brought home what the playwright was trying to achieve with this piece (with the examination of race and opportunities for BAME actors) despite the more comical elements in the writing.
Casting wise, the cast of 8 I thought were all very good and their performances kept me thoroughly entertained.
Overall, an excellent piece of drama with lots to chew over post show. 4⭐️
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Post by intoanewlife on Dec 9, 2019 13:41:51 GMT
I got tickets when they went on sale as I had been dying to see it since I missed it in NYC.
I then STUPIDLY booked a holiday without checking the dates and of course it clashed, so I had to return the tickets.
Had a look this morning for every date and nothing except wheelchair access and just checked again on the off chance now and got a return for the matinee this Wednesday!
So excited! It'll make up for my disastrous holiday!
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Post by jadnoop on Dec 9, 2019 16:39:12 GMT
3 high seats upstairs seem to have been released for most performances (N15 - N17). Slightly nervous about the view from there, but this looks like a really interesting play so may go for it...
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Post by intoanewlife on Dec 9, 2019 19:31:52 GMT
3 high seats upstairs seem to have been released for most performances (N15 - N17). Slightly nervous about the view from there, but this looks like a really interesting play so may go for it... I sat in those for A-Train and they were fine! |
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