Shaun Davies

A bit of an endurance test. Quite a few hammy performances, but others were exceptional. Over-engineered script, clever-clogs 'ironising' of (American-flavoured) psychotherapy cliche schtick. Light moments of humour, but little genuine drollery. Dunno. Stage work was flat, but set design was rather good - in part. I found it all a bit forced and over-emotional. Did I find it confronting, sexually/politically? No. Philosophically challenging? No, not really. Others might: the same people who might find stage nudity 'daring'. Perhaps others might find it a relief that the issue has been taken up and tackled, in a sense. But surely this is not new and unexplored terrain? I think the play has a solid and serious (cultural/social) basis from which to work up from, but simply adding on more and more scaffolding makes it seem a bit forced and ornamental. The sound production was obvious and a bit clumsy. Ditto lighting. Acoustics were fortunate, but that's the dumb luck of theatre-house design. Honestly? Start back at the basics and re-build. Reconfigure the architecture. Less is always more. Edit, and edit again in this case. An ok-ish play could then develop into something quite genuinely, theatrically groundbreaking. Perhaps it is just that the (mostly) American characters are viewed through a British politico-mentality lens, which has become occluded over the years by tv/cinema/mediatised versions of who 'we' think Americans 'really' are, but with both camps not having worked through race/power-imbalance issues particularly successfully? Cultural translation problems, perhaps? Unsure. I don't think the play has supplied the layer of complexity required to interrogate these issues deeply enough, despite the intent and the verbiage. Maybe it could spark a line of research for under-exposed audience members? Generate a bit of investigate thought and self-reflection? Will it motivate, or bring about change? Is it actually shedding any new light on the topic? Or is it all just titillation, followed by supper and chit-chat? There are better sources available for those who genuinely want to explore the issues of "race play" and racial power imbalance, and not merely have their consciences pricked by going to an ooh-ahh, 'makes you think' kinda play.