London has been blessed recently to have a rash of visiting conventions of amazing plays featuring playwrights from the United States (Hallelujah for that!). Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (at the Novello) Ruined ( a visionary tale set in Congo now playing at the Almeida but sold out due to high demand) and The Mountaintop at Trafalgar Studios (my personal favourite), are but a few of Broadway's best exports to the West End. All these plays have been playing to packed mixed audiences, defying the stereotype that black people don't like theatre. We do not need special Arts Council grants to go to plays. By our patronage we are telling the West End that we will attend, if there is something on that we can relate to.
Joe Turner's Come and Gone was playing at The Young Vic and I leapt at the chance to see it, given that it won many awards including the NAACP award, several Tony Awards and was lauded in the New York Times. Written by August Wilson, it is a powerful drama set in 1911 that features the lives of a random sample of black people one generation removed from slavery, who are thrown together by the terrible circumstance of displacement. The protagonists have moved from the South to seek a better life only to find themselves victims of discrimination and to face a different kind of struggle. The overarching theme is movement and dispersement- the play is set within a boarding house, a transient space. Everybody is searching for something or for someone.There are lessons to be learnt- only Seth and Bertha- who chose to follow a fixed life to become entrepreneurs are truly free. The play has been the recipient of many awards but I must admit that at first, I found the characterisation of Bynum and his subsequent interaction with Herald Loomis in the context of healer and voodoo man distracting. A black man expressing his pain does not need to be possessed or crazy to do so. It was only at the denouement, that I found that the play was indeed a brave one when in in the interaction between Martha Pentecost and Loomis, we found the words of the traditional faith healer to ring more true than scripted Christian words:
MARTHA: Jesus bled for you, He's the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World.
LOOMIS: I don't need nobody to bleed for me. I can bleed for myself.
Delroy Lindo, who originally played Herald Loomis in the first few stage productions in the United States, was a fluid and convincing Bynum. He transitioned between grounded and spirit filled with amazing alacrity. Seth, played by Danny Sapanim, was powerful and convincing, as was Petra Letang as a vivacious, confident Molly. I was not thoroughly impressed by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith- the part of Herald Loomis seemed at times too big for him. I felt that the dialogue consumed him. He was great at playing the vacuous empty man but when he was required to be flooded with emotion, there was a strange sense of disconnect. Likewise, Adjoa Andoh- who was brilliant in Invictus, played the part of the engaging Madame with almost too much enthusiasm. Just a little less gesticulation and emphasis would have made her just that smidgen more convincing. The intimate layout of the Young Vic meant that the audience were privy to every little detail so there was no need for over dramatic flourishes.
The play is a powerful play because it gives some insight of the new America at the cusp of industrialisation and fixes our attention on the plight of the ex slaves as they seek to forge new identities and seek their worth as free men. However, as I left the theatre, I asked myself, how far have we come since then? Do we still carry the pain of displacement and separation? Have we come to a position where we are reconnected and reassembled, or are we like the Matties and Mollies and Heralds, still looking, still searching for something?
(Joe Turner's Come and Gone is at the Young Vic from 27 June to 6 July. Tickets 22.50 but 15.00 in the first two weeks. There is apparently a Metro offer for 10 pound tickets).
