__IS LONDON READY FOR SLAVE PLAY?__
At the MacGregor Plantation the Old South is alive and well. The heat in the air, the cotton fields and the power of the whip. Yet nothing is quite as it appears… or maybe it is.
The iconic, controversial, ground-breaking and most Tony Nominated play of all time comes to London. __Fisayo Akinade, James Cusati-Moyer, Kit Harington, Aaron Heffernan, Chalia La Tour, Annie McNamara, Irene Sofia Lucio__ and __Olivia Washington__ star in Jeremy O. Harris’s extraordinary play about race, identity and sexuality in twenty-first century America. Robert O’Hara directs at the intimate Noël Coward Theatre for a strictly limited and unmissable season.
__Assisted Performances__
Audio Described - Saturday 17th August 2.30pm
Captioned - Saturday 3rd August 2.30pm
It feels distinctly like an American play, confronting plantation slavery, although the therapy section brings a more generalised trauma for Black characters. It feels of a specific moment, too, and seems to predict BLM anger with language used in the resurgence of the 2020 movement (from likening racism to a “virus” to the acknowledgment of white supremacy).
The overall acting is a bit hammed, rich in strong, exaggerated movements and fighting scenes choreographed by Jade Hackett. In contrast, Harington’s acting exemplifies some self-containment and restraint. In the second act where the discursive part of the therapy begins, Jim writes a letter to his “queen” Kaneisha, illustrating a typical white, straight, heterosexual male ego who only talks but does not listen. Harington’s crystal-like begging tone with his slightly awkward southern accent adds a layer of fragile sincerity, feeling more complex and multilayered.
2018 | Off-Broadway |
NYTW Off-Broadway World Premiere Off-Broadway |
2019 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2021 | Broadway |
Broadway Return Broadway |
West End |
West End |
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