Ok, I’m going to try again and offer the summary of my thoughts about the play and of the Black out experience. From the queues outside the theatre, it felt like when I’ve been to watch Black Comedy shows - knowing that you have a shared humour of jokes before their even told. Once inside the vibe felt rather different, perhaps a closeness in anticipation of difficult themes and a painful history with healed scars. For me this feeling was foreshadowed by the ‘Self Care’ booklet that the ushers handed out.
I was warmed by seeing others who were also by themselves, and like me felt compelled to be there. To show up and take my seat, to participate, to represent myself. I’m quite shy by nature but got into conversation with others who sat beside and behind me - shared jokes about us all being uncharacteristically early! Small talk, and pleasantries that I’ve not found at comedy shows. If this was what Black Out night was set up to achieve, it already had my approval. Audience 95% Of Colour; we were told each Black Out night was sold out.
So, Slave Play. I expected a play about slaves. Not so - the title as Slave-Play would have been a more accurate and the context of the show and explicit content of the first few scenes would have been apparent. But if it’d been hyphenated, I probably wouldn’t have gone.
A play about power and race and how that plays out through couple/intimate relationships. Three couples:
Bf + wm
Mixed m + wf
Bm + wm
It was really uncomfortable viewing from the start as the play opened with three scenes with each couple building up and engaging in slave-play acted out through scenarios of familiar historic slave-master dynamics. Very physical, extremely sexual, intimate and intense (I turned away quite a bit).
The scenes that followed took the audience to couples counselling sessions that referenced the above. Really cleverly done and particularly insightful to understand how the Mixed-Race male character lived through his daily torment and how he grappled with his racial identity and whether he felt and behaved Black enough and/or too Black.
The Black female chastising herself for holding back in her relationship, for fear of her partner perceiving her as too Black, as potentially rejecting her. Lots of audible audience disapproval each time he called her his queen. (The narrative swings subtly from slave-play to slave play and back again). The Black female’s annoyance at how easily her partner has won her attention and affection. How she felt triumphant in securing her white prize, and the separate but apparent public trophyism from her and the partner. Her battling with having to surrender aspects of herself to fit it; her wanting to escape that but knowing she never would - and never could. Unsure if she even wanted to, yet very aware that her choices perpetuate the inequality, the psychological strains that her choice of partner means is a part of her daily strain.
The therapy sessions find that the white partners in all three couples are uncomfortable about their whiteness and privilege in relation to their lovers’. The sessions become dominated by exploitations of what the white discomfort is experienced, justified, understood and silences the experience of the Black characters. The irony lost on the white characters, as the point of the therapy itself was to give the Black partners a voice and sage space to share and explore their lived experiences within the context of their seemingly safe and optional relationships. Slave Play. Really uncomfortable in parts, but I found it really powerful as part of the narrative and experience.
I stayed for the Q&A after the show with the writer, director and some of the cast. Was as interesting as the performance itself. A poignant moment when the Bm actor shared his dismay that on each Black Out performance, members of the audience leave during the Bm+wm intimate scenes, yet we’re quite happy to stay and sit through the slave-play scene when the wm forced the Bf to each cantaloupe off the floor. The actor challenged the audience to reflect on our own reactions to the two scenes.
Overall I enjoyed it. A lot. I’d definitely go to see it again if I had the opportunity. With BHM only a couple of weeks away, I hope there are more Black Out performances and Black plays on.