The Rolling Stone

I thought this was an excellent play - very tight, with clear inspiration from the Crucible in terms of the witch-hunt and family members in fear of whether to report a suspected son or brother. The acting was excellent, and much was gained by the simple in the round staging, akin to the audience members as a congregation watching the sermons and in horror at the prejudice displayed. We stayed for an after-show talk with the writer and actors, and I was even more impressed by the commitment shown by them to creating an all too believable and realistic play.

If it all sounds all miserable or heavy, the ties of love and loyalty at the heart of the story between the two young men, between brother and sister, and family members lifted this thought provoking play up a level. With Husbands and Wives, a flying start to 2016.

It's on until 20 February at the Orange Tree Theatre Richmond, and for me, highly recommended.

This is great.

The only drawback is that the dialogue is clunky at times, with characters making on-the-nose descriptions of themselves that I found a little alienating: for example, one person describes herself as "a flower that hasn't bloomed," another says he is "waging war with myself." In another instance, "The Crucible" is so omnipresent, that a character is described as having been seen "with the devil."

Yet this is so dramatic, so horribly real, events taking a familar, yet completely frightening progression. I was on the edge of my seat!

Fiston Barek (who plays the lead character, Dembe) is perfect for this, because his easy naturalistic acting serves to tone down the more heavyhanded passages of writing, and strips melodrama from some of the twists and turns, leaving only the believeable and terrifying suspense of the real. Sule Rimi as his preacher brother Joe channels electric amounts of intensity, in a performance that elucidates how easy it is to fall into bigotry, when society demands it.

The fact that homophobic persecution is the reality in Uganda makes this one of the most important and prescient plays out there.

I loved it, and I can't forget it!

4 stars.

I was really looking forward to this, both because I was so impressed by the writer's Land Of Our Fathers (which may not have been written first but which was the first of his I saw) and because the reviews/comments were so enthusiastic and positive.

In fact I didn't enjoy it as much and felt it slightly outstayed its welcome; also, the ending seemed inconclusive and not what the audience had been led to expect.

However, it's obviously still another very impressive work from this writer and great that it's being seen; also that, whatever my own views about the new Orange Tree AD and his programming policy, it's a good move for this venue, too.