Unseen Unheard: The untold breast cancer stories of Black women in the UK - Review

Theatre Peckham, London

****

Written by Naomi Denny

Directed by Simon Frederick & Suzann McLean

Six women attend a support group meeting for black women with breast cancer. It doesn’t sound like a promising premise for a lively play. It could easily have become a static, earnestly worthy documentary. In the accomplished hands of playwright Naomi Denny however, it’s anything but, with Denny delivering a pacey, dynamic, entertaining drama. Yes, of course, there’s anger, sadness and fear but there’s also a lot of wisdom and humour in this warm celebration of female friendship.

Denny has based her play on the testimony of five women, credited and named in the programme. From that she has moulded six characters, all very different but each a meaty role. And casting director Ali Anselmo has assembled an outstanding cast to bring these people convincingly and realistically to life. 

Denise Pitter is very plausible as Pauline who chairs the meeting. She’s empathetic, respectful and carefully inclusive. Laya Lewis plays her passionate and funny friend Ruth. Both women are currently NED (no evidence of disease). Carol Moses’s Dorah, on the other hand, has Stage 4 cancer and is by turns forthright, bitter, outrageous, hilarious, kind and terrified. The nuancing is impressive.

As Sonia, Yvonne Gidden is tense, taciturn and apprehensive but gradually unbends and Genesis Lynea delights as her elegant, articulate doctor daughter although lack of age gap between them doesn’t work. Meanwhile Aliyah (Adaora Anwa) is the youngest attendee. Only 25 and still living at home she is struggling to come to terms with having been assailed by this disease so early in life.

The group dynamics are perceptively observed as they compare notes, concur, infuriate each other, argue, drink tea and share the food they’ve brought. Occasional freeze flashbacks (good lighting by Pablo Fernandez) provide insights into the experience of diagnosis or dealing with the horror of learning you have cancer as a single parent of two children.  It’s cracking drama as well as being informative. How many people know that a black woman with breast cancer is forty per cent more likely to die than a white one? This is a play with a powerful message.

Runs until 4th May

Reviewed by Susan Elkin

The Wild Party - Review

The Other Palace, London


****


Book, music and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa
Book by George C. Wolfe
Directed and choreographed by Drew McOnie

Frances Ruffelle and John Owen-Jones

The arrival of Michael John LaChiusa's The Wild Party in London marks a number of premiere moments. It is: the first production of the show this side of the Atlantic; it is also the debut production staged in the newly re-branded The Other Palace (formerly known as the St James Theatre); and even more importantly the production marks choreographer Drew McOnie’s elevation to director, alongside his recognized craft of choreography. 

Drawn from Joseph Moncure March's 1928 poem of the same name the show is an unrelenting tale of bastardry in 1920s New York. Frances Ruffelle's Queenie and her husband Burrs are a pair of fading Vaudeville artistes. But Queenie loves to party, wildly and the musical evolves into a blurred flurry of decadent debauchery that is ultimately to end in rape and murder. The details of the plot are barely significant - think of The Great Gatsby without the glamour, or perhaps a glimpse into what Stephen King's Overlook Hotel may have been like in its once wonderful pomp.

John Owen-Jones is the terrifyingly brilliant Burrs - at times grotesquely sporting a clown's white slap and red lips. To Gavin Mallett's muted trumpet early on in the show his compelling voice and presence defines misogyny - his white-gloved jazz hands as capable of beating up a woman as whipping up an audience. Owen-Jones is never less than compelling, think Archie Rice with a hint of Amos Hart and you start to get close to his monstrous creation. (There's a doomed mania to the partnership of Owen-Jones and Ruffelle that makes one long for a one-day future pairing as Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett.)

It's hard to track the flow of guests - there are so many cameo turns, for the most part performed flawlessly, that the plot's details dissolve into a carefully choreographed cocktail of humanity. These are partying gadflies desperately clinging to a life of social semblance, yet all, for the most part, little more than vapid, vacuous vamps. And throughout there's a pulse of jealousy fuelled by Victoria Hamilton-Barritt's Kate and her insouciant lover Black played by Simon Thomas.

LaChiusa has structured his work so that all the ensemble get their moment(s) in the spotlight and to be fair, with only a couple of exceptions, they all give of their entirety to make this punishing show deliver its punch. Memorable amongst the cast are Genesis Lynea and Gloria Obianyo's androgynous twins, Tiffany Graves intriguing Madeleine, Steven Serlin's violated Goldberg and Dex Lee's serpentine Jackie.

As with any McOnie production, the movement comes first - and The Wild Party is a virtually constant flow of lithe fluidity as the cast writhe through their roles. Where perhaps the flaws in McOnie's directing skills peek through, is in the occasional moments where the acting sometimes fades away. Seasoned troupers like Owen-Jones and Ruffelle can act their hearts out blindfolded - but elsewhere McOnie needs to have taken some of the cast deeper into their roles.

Soutra Gilmour's set is a multi layered confection that's a treat to look at,  save for Richard Howell's lighting which a tad too often blinds the audience with its stadium-powered wash. Up above the stage, Theo Jamieson's eight piece band are nothing short of remarkable as they deliver LaChiusa's score, a composition as relentlessly brilliant as the narrative.

Whilst the music and movement are stunning, The Wild Party's not easy on both eyes and ears and is probably best enjoyed by genre aficionados. A couple of pre-show gins or juleps are recommended too.

Runs until 1st April

Photo credit: Scott Rylander

Kiss Of The Spider Woman

Arts Educational School, London

*****

Book by Terrence McNally, based on the novel of the same name by Manuel Puig

Music by John Kander

Lyrics by Fred Ebb

Genesis Lynae and company members

Kander and Ebb’s Kiss Of The Spider Woman is a show rarely seen in London. A troubling piece, exploring life within a repressive prison environment of a nondescript South American country and focussing upon the two inmates of one cell. Molina, a homosexual, is imprisoned on a trumped up charge of a sexual offence, whilst Valentin, a committed Marxist, is incarcerated and tortured for his beliefs. The show’s action is set almost entirely in the confines of the prison and in the vividly imagined fantasies of movie-obsessed Molina’s mind and from there stems the power of Puig’s novel, cleverly captured in Terrence McNally’s book.

The  Arts Educational School BA Musical Theatre 3rd Year students are a talented troupe and one could have been forgiven for mistaking this company for professionally experienced alumni rather than undergraduates, such was the talent on display. This review, perhaps invidiously, will comment on but a handful of characters. However, whilst these players may have had key roles, the overall performance of the entire company was astounding. There was not a weak link amongst them and all the actors must shoulder equally the praise that this production has garnered.

The intriguingly named Genesis Lynea headed the cast,  both as Aurora, a film starlet type character of Molina’s fantasies and also as the Spider Woman. Veiled and impeccably made up with jet black lipstick and implausibly long eyelashes Lynea bore a stage presence rarely if at all seen in one so early on in their career. The actress’ poise, presence, movement and above all, her voice was astounding. Shaven headed, costumed throughout in splendid gowns that at times could plunge to display her provocative decolletage, a suggestion of the siren-like fatality of her kiss, Lynea is without question an actress to look out for.

Greg Miller Burns as Molina displayed a combination of strength and fragility. Two of his solo numbers in particular She’s A Woman and Mama, It’s Me showed vocal precision that matched his movement whilst his acting skill gave a credible portrayal of his growing love for his cellmate. Valentin realised by Danny-Boy Hatchard was another display of gritty acting, convincingly evoking a  man at times starved, at times beaten and ultimately in love. Vocally, Hatchard has perhaps a little more to offer than was heard in this show, however his leading of the ensemble in The Day After That was a powerful and moving anthem. Olive Robinson and Shane McDaid were effective supporting players, as Molina’s Mother and Prison Warder respectively, providing sufficient depth in each of their portrayals to add colour to a very starkly portrayed world.

Nikolai Foster’s direction and interpretation of the show has been a blessing to these fortunate students. With minimal props and no scenery save for minimal use of projection and a combination of smoke and well plotted lighting, the power of this production came solely from human endeavour and excellence. The fantasy scenes, in which a dozen actors could, from nowhere, gallop through the shared cell were inspired creations whilst the oft repeated refrain of the prisoners, Over The Wall, was in each of its four reprises, menacingly played out.

Kander’s music is of course denuded without choreography and Drew McOnie’s vision that drew upon the tango amongst other Latin styles, together with some nods in the direction of Bob Fosse, was nothing if not provocative. The big numbers of the Morphine Tango, Let’s Make Love and Only In The Movies, exploited both the talent and the size of the cast and were as drilled and rehearsed as they were imaginative whilst Tom Deering’s musical direction produced a large and compelling South American sound from a band of barely three. The creative trinity of Foster, McOnie and Deering is a symbiotic powerhouse that clearly generates outstanding musical theatre.

This production deserves more than its brief academic-length run of ten days. If the gods of theatre can bestow this show for a month or so, at somewhere like the Riverside perhaps, London will be the richer for it.