5 STARS, May 18 – June 24. "If you want to be reminded why you love theatre and you’re OK with stroboscopes, the ‘f’ word and a bit of violence, go and see this play!", says Richard Davies
It’s not often I leave a theatre wanting to shout “I LOVE THIS PLAY!” but that’s how I felt after watching An Octaroon. Rarer still, my wife felt the same way. Over the years, I’ve dragged her to more than a few “edgy” productions; I won’t quite say 'kicking and screaming', but each failed theatrical experiment has left a scar. So when I read other critical reviews of this production, I felt obliged to offer her an opt-out. Fortunately as she was in-between box sets, we were able to share this experience of modern theatre at its exhilarating best.
It is hard to describe this play without hearing the words 'you’re not selling this to me'. The Octaroon is a modern day adaptation by a talented young American writer called Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (BJJ) of a play written in 1859 by the Dublin-born American playwright , Dion Boucicault. Chances are that like me, you’ve never heard of the play or Boucicault, who apparently was a high living impresario and Broadway theatre owner. Desperate for a hit to pay off his debts, Boucicault picked the topical theme of slavery (this was two years before the American Civil War) to stage a good old-fashioned melodrama about love, betrayal and murder.
It’s the story of a young man, George an early photographer living in Paris, who inherits a debt-ridden plantation in the Deep South, falls in love with his Uncle’s love child, the beautiful Zoe, but cannot marry her because she is one eighth black and officially a slave who must be sold with the estate to pay off the debts.
With strong pro-emancipation theme, An Octaroon was ahead of its time. But awkwardly for a modern audience, the play was conceived as a 'minstrel’ show with white actors blacking up to play slaves and even redding up to play a Native American. In its appropriation of other people’s lives and voices, the original play represents a new form of exploitation.
Fast forward to the present and BJJ, a Black American, walks on stage naked but for socks and pants to deliver the prologue, recounting a conversation with his shrink about his crazy idea to produce this play. In politically correct America, no white actor wants to play a racist, slave-abusing plantation owner while no black actor wants to play an Uncle Tom 'coconut' sucking up to the white man. So what’s the solution? In BJJ’s version, black actors white up while the white actors black up. At the same time, a general lack of willing male actors results in three men playing ten roles between them. The effect of all this “damn foolery” is hilarious and at times breathtaking.
This is one of the most talented casts that I have seen in a long time. Ken Nwosu is simply outstanding as the adapter BJJ, young George and his evil rival M’Closky. The scene when he has to fight himself is a thrilling piece of stagecraft. Kevin Trainor electrifies the stage with his wild energy; as the play progresses, the mad glint in his eye becomes increasingly unnerving. Emanuella Cole and Vivian Oparah are just superb as the slave women Dido and Minnie, reclaiming the voices of these characters in a version of modern street slang that at times is sassy, sad and tender. Celeste Dowell is also hilarious as the southern belle Dora, especially when she poses for her first ever photograph with the knowingness of a teenage selfie queen.
The production is filled with knowing post modernist touches. We learn that Boucicault was a great innovator who invented the matinee, the Corsican stage trap and fire proof scenery. You are glad of this knowledge in one very unsettling moment of the play which I won’t spoil, except to say that it is not only the play that is deconstructed in this superb production, it is theatre, or should I say 'the theatre' itself.
Seriously though, if you want to be reminded why you love theatre and you’re OK with stroboscopes, the ‘f’ word and a bit of violence, go see this play!
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