Tag Archives: Camilla Greenwell

A GOOD HOUSE

★★★★

Royal Court

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A GOOD HOUSE

Royal Court

★★★★

“The performances and the dynamics are gripping”

The time is now. The setting is the evocatively named small town of Stillwater which, we are told is located ‘wherever that may be’. Although it is clear we are in South Africa. But switch the accents and we could be anywhere in the world; from the Redneck belt of the Southern US to a provincial English backwater. The poignancy that oozes from Amy Jephta’s one act play, “A Good House”, is universal. The smalltown sensibilities that fester unchecked on a microscope slide are magnified into a thrilling and acerbic dissection of community politics. Bitter, sweet, dangerous and funny; it challenges and twists our expectations.

Sihle (Sifiso Mazibuko) and Bonolo (Mimî M Khayisa) are new to the area. They are getting to know relative old timers Chris (Scott Sparrow) and Lynette (Olivia Darnley). It is, in fact, two years since Sihle and Bonolo moved to the neighbourhood: a telling fact. A brief, highly charged prologue precedes the opening scenes in which Sihle and Chris first meet each other under different circumstances. It sets up the dynamics and highlights the innate and institutionalised racism that is embedded in the tarmac of the residents’ matching driveways. We think we are in Mike Leigh territory for a moment. Wine is slowly (alas too slowly) poured and polite conversation trips over awkward faux pas. But Jephta pulls it out by the scruff of the neck, while Nancy Medina’s direction cracks the whip, drives out the Pinteresque pauses and sends it galloping off through the overlapping dialogue.

Sparrow’s Chris is clumsily ‘right on’ and obsequious in the extreme. We quickly know that he can’t be trusted. Similarly, Darnley’s over-eager Lynette is a Cape Town Sloane Ranger – if such a thing exists. Sihle and Bonolo have sussed them out. A freeze-frame device intermittently sets certain characters in suspended animation while the others are free to vent the true feelings that lie hidden beneath the chit chat. The performances and the dynamics are gripping. Mazibuko fills the stage with the imposing figure of Sihle, seemingly – and only initially – compliant with the reactions provoked by his skin colour and background. Khayisa’s portrayal of the no-nonsense Bonolo is a master stroke that surprises us with some refreshingly unexpected views on society and race.

In their suburban community, a mysterious shack has sprung up – the inhabitants nowhere to be seen. Speculation abounds as to who is responsible for this eyesore, and with this speculation the petty bigotry feeds on itself and multiplies. Andrew (Kai Luke Brummer) and Jess (Robyn Rainsford) are the couple most affected, the shack being on their doorstep. Brummer and Rainsford are a perfect match depicting the ‘perfect suburban couple’ – in other words gauche and full of gaffes, embarrassing indiscretions, bigotry and fanaticism.

The shack, although a real structure, is also clearly an allegory. The anonymity of its occupants is seen as being dangerous. Fear abounds, naturally. The writing and the performances ridicule and make a mockery of it all, quite rightly, but also highlight the conflicts and the tensions. The petty prejudices cut far deeper than overt racism. We get a real sense of the institutionalised racism that breeds in these small-town minds that, if left untended, can grow like knotweed.

“A Good House” is a very modern satire. Its façade is a comedy but behind its closed doors lies quite a different story. If I were you, I’d think twice about borrowing a cup of sugar in Stillwater. But I wouldn’t think twice about seeing the play. Just be prepared to find splinters of glass mixed in with the sugar.

 



A GOOD HOUSE

Royal Court

Reviewed on 17th January 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Camilla Greenwell

 

 

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE BOUNDS | ★★★ | June 2024
LIE LOW | ★★★★ | May 2024
BLUETS | ★★★ | May 2024
GUNTER | ★★★★ | April 2024
COWBOIS | ★★★★★ | January 2024
MATES IN CHELSEA | ★★★ | November 2023
CUCKOO | ★★½ | July 2023
BLACK SUPERHERO | ★★★★ | March 2023
FOR BLACK BOYS … | ★★★★★ | April 2022

A GOOD HOUSE

A GOOD HOUSE

A GOOD HOUSE

 

 

NOW, I SEE

★★★★

Theatre Royal Stratford East

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NOW, I SEE at the Theatre Royal Stratford East

★★★★

“All three actors have wonderful chemistry together, expressing a totally believable fraternal bond.”

Movement in theatre can often feel forced in an attempt to be Avant Garde. Cringe-inducing lyrical movement to show passion or staccato twitching under strobe to show something dark. In Now I See, Lanre Malaolu’s second play in what will be a trilogy as writer, director and movement director, modern black British masculinity is explored in a style of storytelling that naturally and organically interweaves narrative and movement to enhance the drama.

Set at the funeral of one of three brothers, the play is mostly a two hander between the remaining siblings, interspersed with flashbacks to a youth spent playing rough, making up dance routines, and impersonating the Power Rangers. A low-res hum of afro beats provides constant background music (sound design Pär Carlsson), cut with contemporary Black British pop and R&B to accompany some of the more involved moments of movement. Kieron (Oliver Alvin-Wilson) and Dayo (Nnabiko Ejimofor) appear not to have had much of a relationship in recent years, the cause for which is side stepped around and never addressed head on. What is clear is that the onset of sickle cell anaemia for their brother, Adeyeye (Tendai Humphrey Sitima) led to the issues between the brothers and the rest of the family. It’s fitting, then, that the remembrance of Adeyeye’s life should act as a healing experience for them.

 

 

Malaolu’s movement expresses emotion – joy, pain, relief – where words fail; enhancing the drama, rather than distracting. Set and staging (Igrid Hu) further complement the movement with a recurring rippling motif extending from drapery across the proscenium arch through to water filling a perspex coffin ever present downstage. In one particularly effective moment Alvin-Wilson as Kieron describes a dream he has had about a bird, a metaphor for his own deep buried pain. Under dim lighting, Nnabiko Ejimofor crosses down stage as the bird, taking slow timid steps before his movement becomes larger and more erratic, visualising the nightmarish quality of Kieron’s dream sequence.

All three actors have wonderful chemistry together, expressing a totally believable fraternal bond. Alvin-Wilson is the gruff, strong man. The eldest brother ground down by life. Who has hardened his exterior to protect against the cruel world and bad luck he has been dealt. Ejimofor is younger, more hopeful, trusting. He embodies the bookish stereotype of a man in touch with his emotions and perceptive to those of others. Tendai Humphrey Sitima as Adeyeye is largely silent in his role as the deceased brother, other than for occasional voice overs. This makes his perhaps the most difficult role of the three, never off stage but hardly at the centre of the drama; a constant presence circling his brothers haunting them or being haunted by them.

This all seems rather dark, but the cast seems to be enjoying themselves so much delivering the witty lines that more than once more than one actor can’t hold it together. Malaolu’s early successes may have been through movement and dance but this piece shows his talents as a writer, despite a slightly over indulgent climactic clash between the brothers in the second act. The script is surprisingly funny and warm for a play about grief and family trauma. But it’s through the smart delivery that the specificity written into the characters comes to life.


NOW, I SEE at the Theatre Royal Stratford East

Reviewed on 16th May 2024

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Camilla Greenwell

 

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

CHEEKY LITTLE BROWN | ★★★½ | April 2024
THE BIG LIFE | ★★★★★ | February 2024
BEAUTIFUL THING | ★★★★★ | September 2023

NOW I SEE

NOW I SEE

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