Slave Play – Noel Coward Theatre

There are plenty of massive box office hits in the last 12 months

This play is way too niche lacking mainstream appeal

To be a west end commercial hit

Producers often put arrogance above common sense when planning things in the WE

I said already it would have been a sell out at The Almeida but for some reason the playwright is not only deluded about his work but also the need to act as a producer for it

It is also failing to attract the sort of amazing and vibrant audiences who I saw at For When Black Boys

At the end of the day if the play is sh*t it will remain as such irrespective of casting (ask KST)

And if there is not a true true A lister starring (Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman etc)

It was always going to be touch and go and no guarantees

The diction of the two people running the therapy was dreadful

One in particular shocking

It was sure it was like a lisp or an issue forming her words

The clarity was poor

The idea isn’t bad

I like controversial themes

It’s just this playwright makes the common error of being obsessed with ONLY controversial issues and trying to provoke

Usually indicates their own unresolved issues

Saw this tonight and thought it was TERRIFIC!

Its complex, its topical, and its very funny.

The 4 actors who originated their roles are excellent, and so are the 4 new actors!

Spoilers follow. . .

This reminded me of "Clybourne Park," in that it gets a lot of laughs out of serious issues to do with race.

This also reminded me of "Daddy," in that you can't assume Jeremy O. Harris is playing favourites, and that one character is speaking for him. In fact, all the characters are complex and interesting, and have something to contribute.

But first and foremost, this is funny. Its like "Clybourne Park" crossed with "50 Shades of Gray," in that the fault lines of race (and "shades") are addressed through some bizarre kind of interracial S & M therapy, which is evident in the way the characters address each other in the first ten minutes, and just keeps getting more obvious.

So one layer of comedy is in the interaction between fantasy and reality, when one intrudes on the other, as when a character disrupts a fantasy that someone is enjoying, or when someone's reality is disrupted by the zeal of someone else's fantasy.

Another layer of comedy is in the imposing of the over-civilised language of therapy speak (bordering on gobbledygook to British ears) on violent fantasies, violence and civility being such strange and strained conflicting bedfellows that laughter inevitably ensues.

For those who imagine this play is "too American" (therapy of any sort isn't as big a thing here as in the US, for better or for worse), Kit Harington's character, Jim, is an absolute godsend, described in the text as "Oxbridge," and "foreign," and going practically Basil Fawlty ballistic about the adverse effects of the sort of therapy that deepens wounds to heal them. In a way, he is our voice, our comic way into this alien world but also, it follows that we feel implicated by his missteps lol.

And even among the therapists, let alone the patients, trying to reign in violent emotions with exaggerated civility proves comically contentious.

But as in "Clybourne Park," the laughs are only one precious part of it, because this play also makes a genuine attempt to mine people's identities deeply to demonstrate how real people tick, how dramatic tensions surface between partners, and the play is often authentically illuminating about this, sometimes at the expense of more Manichean dramatic possibilities.

Anyhow, the acting is all-round fantastic!

On the comedy side of things, Annie McNamara and Aaron Heffernan as a white woman and her mixed race partner are an absolute hoot, with Heffernan's Phillip reacting in the funniest and most unexpected ways to his partner acting like an uber-entitled out-of-control kid in an S&M candy store.

On the dramatic side of things, the couple, Gary and Dustin, played respectively by the always brilliant Fisayo Akinade and role originator, James Cusati-Moyer, go toe-to-toe as the much much much whiter Dustin tries to get empathy for not being completely white. It sounds ridiculous but these two actors make a real intense authentic thing of it.

Harington's Jim, and his black female partner, Kaneisha, played by Olivia Washington as a sharp cookie who knows her own mind, are the closest thing to main characters, and Harington, after some great comic bits, also gets some seriously great dramatic bits, as he objects to his whiteness being made a thing. And the way Washington reacts to his reaction makes for a superb conflict that rounds out the play.

The other two actors, as the therapists, are also immensely entertaining, with the pithy, precise, policing of civility by Chalia LaTour's Tea particularly so.

All in all, I felt this was just as good as "Daddy," which I loved, to the tune of 4 and a half stars.

I'd be sad if something as funny and meaningful as this show struggles to sell, as although the subject matter seems niche, there is abundant humanity, topicality and originality in the depiction and portrayal of all the characters.

You didn't miss much. Very average play, good acting.

I didn't really like Daddy personally, thought Slave Play is miles better.

I liked it, but I agree that it was too long. Not sure I'll bother with Slave Play- comments here make me think of White Noise at the Bridge a few years ago which I felt was more bizarre than shocking. 

White Noise was far more absorbing and exciting than this imo.

Hard agree

me three. 

Hilarious that this is coming from someone who loved Plaza Suite. This board is one of the most unhinged places online and I love it for that.