“To see the moments of queer joy that are portrayed here is truly a pleasure”
The P Word, written by Waleed Akhtar, finds itself caught in the space between a two hander and a series of monologues. The play remains grounded, however, by its layered character and their wit.
Bilal, played by Akhtar, details to the audience his experiences as a British Pakistani man in the gay dating scene. He lets his prejudices, fatphobia and islamophobia in particular, be known early on, as well as sources of their internalization. Zafar, played by Esh Alladi, arrives onstage mid-trauma: engaged in an unsuccessful bid to seek asylum in the UK, his partner murdered, his life endangered by a homophobic father were he to be deported to Pakistan. The play only kicks into gear, however, when the two characters bump into one another in the middle of Soho during Pride.
The set, designed by Max Johns, is minimal and elegant. A raised, circular, rotating platform, carries the characters temporally through the play. Each half of the platform tilts in the opposite direction, and LED light illuminates the outline of each semicircle, enclosing Bilal and Zafar in their disparate experiences for the first half of the play. Small compartments built into the set facilitate quick changes, allowing both actors to remain onstage for the duration of the play. These transitions, however, can feel rushed, more marked than they are performed.
Before Bilal and Zafar meet, they communicate exclusively in parallel monologue. Most of the unseen characters in Zafar monologues—a stranger, his mother, a healthcare worker—make their presence known through voiceover. Akhtar steps outside of Bilal’s character with more regularity, voicing his hookups and co-workers, lending his monologues the quality of a one-person show. This particular directorial choice by Anthony Simpson-Pike could be intended to further distinguish Bilal and Zafar’s narratives, but it results in a garbled theatrical language. The formal discrepancy, along with the duration of the parallel monologue sections, lends a dragging and uneven quality to the first half of the play, despite strong performances from Akhtar and Alladi.
Even after Bilal and Zafar have had their chance encounter and begin to share scenes, these parallel monologues persist. The two characters frequently break from engaging moments of dialogue to speak directly to the audience, halting the pace of the second half. The P Word finds its emotional core within the extended and mostly uninterrupted scenes between Bilal and Zafar. Bilal confronts his internalized prejudices, while Zafar begins to heal from the murder of his partner, Haroon. These scenes are both tender and emotionally fraught, blissfully banal and high stakes. To see the moments of queer joy that are portrayed here is truly a pleasure.
In The P Word’s final moments, following a somewhat sensationalized and romanticized conclusion, the world of the play briefly cracks. Though the break seems to be inspired by works such as Jackie Sibblies Dury’s ‘Fairview’, it reads more like an admission than it does a true confrontation, inadvertently letting the audience and performance off the hook.
Favour, a new co-production between The Bush Theatre and Clean Break written by Ambreen Razia, is a tight and heartfelt drama following a working-class Muslim family in East London. It deftly engages with sweeping themes of addiction and its manifestation, mental illness and its effects on parenting, and the connections between social marginalization and the criminal justice system, at the granular and interpersonal level.
The play understands the notion of retributive justice not simply as a harmful status quo that is enforced by the criminal justice system, but as a social norm that bleeds into our familial relationships.
Aleena returns from prison to her mother Noor and daughter Leila. She quarrels with Noor over the way she ought to reintegrate with society, and is more permissive with Leila as she attempts to reclaim her role as primary parent, leading to a conflict of authority. As tensions build, doubt is cast on Aleena’s ability to parent, as well as the circumstances of her incarceration. Though Favour’s plot has its twists and turns, the play is driven chiefly by its layered characters and their complex relationships.
Leila is on the precipice of figuring out what she wants from her life and the people in it. In the hands of Ashna Rabheru, she is equally timid and expressive. Leila is comfortable in the world that her Grandmother, Noor, has built for her—her school, her masjid, the rituals of Islam—even though she bristles with it at times. Simultaneously, she is drawn to the visible affection her mother shows her. Most of all, Leila has not yet discarded the urge to please the people she cares about the most, at the expense of her own wants and needs.
Noor understands and meets Leila’s needs as best as she can, but is followed by a spectre of shame and judgement cast by her surrounding community. Throughout the course of the play, she feels equally motivated by that shame and genuine concern for Leila’s wellbeing. She has a penchant for tradition and order, though she seems to privately understand their pitfalls. Renu Brindle plays Noor with lived-in nuance.
Aleena rages at the same community, their judgement and hypocrisy, at a mother who is unable to show her affection, at the clutches of the carceral state that hold on even after her release from prison. Aleena’s wit is biting and acerbic, though not always well-aimed, and Avita Jay brings her to life with boundless energy and verve. Amid her sharp perception, Aleena often cannot see past her own limitations or her projected desires for Leila.
Fozia, Noor’s sister, serves as comic relief and is played with specificity and perfect timing by Rina Fatania. She also, as a deeply flawed pillar of the community, metaphorically conveys the hollowness of middle class respectability.
The tension that Razia plots between the central characters remains constant throughout Favour, even in its most tender and comedic moments. This tension is aided by the expert co-direction of Róisín McBrinn and Sophie Dillon Moniram. They manage physical space with care, crafting uncomfortable triangular chasms between characters and invasions or personal space when appropriate.
The stagecraft, spearheaded by lighting designer Sally Ferguson and set & costume designer Liz Whitbread, hits its peaks when it dips into the surreal. The scene where Aleena attempts to build a fantasy life for Leila brims with campy pleasure and impossibility—a couch becomes a pink salon chair with glowing trim, a mocktail rotates into view from the back wall of the set.
The ending with respect to Noor and Aleena’s relationship feels a little too neat, and potentially unearned. Favour on the whole however, remains a sharp and emotionally impactful piece of work.
