“Despite the lengthy playing time of this production, the audience was spellbound throughout”
In the wake of the Windrush scandal, it is a timely and welcome decision by the Bush Theatre to revive Caryl Phillips’ Strange Fruit. Written in the early 1980s and set at the same time, this intense family drama presents the story of a West Indian woman and her two adult sons as they confront the legacy of their past in the Caribbean, and an uncertain future in Britain. For Vivian, the mother, the past is a wrenching memory of a flight with two small boys, away from an alcoholic, abusive husband. Intelligent and hard working, Vivian sees Britain as a place where she can raise their sons in an environment that offers them safety from their father, and more educational and economic opportunity than can be found in their former home in the Caribbean. It is a dream that, at the very moment of fulfillment, turns into a nightmare.
Alvin, the older son, now a university graduate, has just returned from his grandfather’s funeral in the West Indies. Errol, his younger brother, is dreaming dangerous dreams of going to Africa with his pregnant white girlfriend, to become a “freedom fighter.” Meanwhile Vivian herself is continuing to work long hours as a teacher, without the promotions and recognition that her white colleagues, less experienced than she, have won. Her sons focus, not on her sacrifices for them, but on her failure to tell them the truth about their father, and cutting them off from their Caribbean roots. This is truly the story of a family caught between cultures.
As a young writer in the 1980s, Phillips handled the challenging material of Strange Fruit with the assurance that one would expect from a writer who later became an accomplished novelist. Despite the lengthy playing time of this production, the audience was spellbound throughout, a credit to Nancy Medina’s slick direction. Rakie Ayola as Vivian gave an accomplished performance, and she was ably assisted by Debra Michaels playing Vernice, her loyal West Indian friend and neighbour, who has resolutely hung onto the accent and the clothes of the Caribbean. Tok Stephen as Alvin gave a really outstanding performance as the son who has to confront the past that his mother fled from, and who returns to Britain determined to make a difference to his community if he can.
The only weakness of this triumphant revival is the set. Designer Max Johns created a minimalist, carpeted set with a square depression in the centre, almost like the so called “conversation pits” that were fashionable in American homes in the sxities and seventies. For a naturalistic drama like Strange Fruit, the decision to stage it in the round on this set has the curious effect, not of creating more intimacy, but of distancing the cast from the audience, and making the confrontations more muted. Other than that, this is a satisfying production. Recommended.
“an evocative commentary on ever present class divides”
School can conjure up some of our best and worst memories from our lives. A microcosmic little bubble that can be supportive and caring yet also brutally totalitarian. In Iseult Golden and David Horan’s jointly written and directed award winning play, Class, they thoughtfully question how much the education system has truly changed and whether school can ever erase social divides.
Brian (Stephen Jones) and his estranged wife Donna (Sarah Morris) are back in their old school to meet with their nine-year old son’s teacher, Mr Ray McCafferty (Will O’Connell). With tension already high between the recently separated couple, when Mr McCafferty drops the bombshell that their son Jayden is struggling with the schoolwork and suggests an educational psychologist to determine any issues, the shock and fear riles up into heated discussion. Particularly as Brian and Donna have never liked school, and have never trusted men in suits who use long words instead of getting straight to the point. As the parent-teacher meeting soon crumbles, we cut to Homework Club where Jayden and classmate Kaylie (also played by Jones and Morris) are gradually improving their reading and writing, whilst innocently revealing snapshots of their home life.
Set in the classroom, with traditional wooden chairs and wall-wrapping chalk boards, the building is haunted with memories from the austere, ‘olden days’. This clashes with Mr McCafferty’s more progressive standards of teaching. The enclosed nature of the classroom, jumps from being the secure haven of Homework Club, where the pupils voice their doubts and fears, to a highly claustrophobic and tense environment between volatile parent and condescending teacher. Set designer Maree Kearns makes sure the space can enable this flip flop from the two which is an engaging, and excitable gear change to the story narrative.
Jones and Morris effortlessly shapeshift between playing parent and child that precisely demonstrates how adults and kids see the world differently. You easily forget it’s the same pair of actors. Hardly ever leaving the stage, their metamorphosis happens before the audience’s eyes but this is never jolting nor detracts from the believability. Jones and Morris’ accurate depiction of the funny things kids say and do are spot on, particularly Morris as the dance obsessed Kaylie.
Will O’Connell’s teacher Ray McCafferty is frustratingly caught between eagerly wanting to help his students and what, in this day and age, is deemed as a step too far. O’Connell skilfully navigates his characters ambiguous nature clearly filled with many complexities and hurt. All performances from this three-person cast are impeccable, generously playing off of one another.
Golden and Horan have created an evocative commentary on ever present class divides, and the stigma around learning difficulties, or ‘differences’ as Mr McCafferty would correct me to say. Written with a well-observed eye, and with perceptive performances given, Class is a concise exploration, that never tries to educate you on the issues acknowledged .
