This is a first for touring theatre company, Paines Plough, as they set up their roundabout theatre in Salford this year. They have never produced a Musical before, and this Fringe / experimental piece from the pen of Chinonyerem Odimba, with music by the Ringham Brothers, is a celebration of love in all its forms - well, just as long as it's black that is! The musical fuses R+B style original music with the words of real people; Odimba's script is a combination of actual real dialogue and imagined dialogue based on the same theme.
'Black Love' looks at the lives of a 20-something brother and sister (Aurora and Orion) living in a London flat, left to them after the death of their parents. Their lives seem almost perfect. The wayward free-spirited Aurora (Roo) played with brash confidence by Leah St Luce, always being looked after by a more sensible and sensitive brother, Orion, (Nathan Queeley-Dennis), a 'resting' actor going to auditions whilst working in a cafe. The production touches on the many kinds of love present in this relationship; sibling love, parental love, family love, love of tradition and celebrating where they came from; love of their skin colour and all the heritage and culture that goes with it. They do both see themselves as slightly activistic on this front; Auruora as the health and wellbeing expert who loudly shouts 'orgasm' throughout Orion's audition speech; and it is also one of the reasons Orion can't get any acting work. He is not prepared to fit into the white man's view of what his blackness represents in the scripts.
However, their world is turned upside down when Orion meets Louie (Eleanor Sutton), a pretty white lady with whom he starts an affair. She is brash, ultra-confident and somewhat dismissive of his black culture and heritage. Nevertheless, he begins to feel free and alive, and is happy for her to share his life. Aurora, on the other hand is not, and the balance of power shifts in her favour as she eventually brings Orion back down to earth and reminds him that black love is black love and he is disrespecting his family and his heritage with this romance. Brother and sister at one and the same time complementing their love and obstructing it.
I found this musical very difficult to watch. Every production I have ever seen before which has taken as its theme, blacks in Britain in a contemporary setting, has always gone to great lengths to try and integrate and look past the skin colour and the differences that come with it. Here it seems (unless I have completely misunderstood the end) that the message is just the opposite. We are different, we don't mix, shouldn't mix, and we should keep our culture clean and pure. This was a celebration of their blackness.
I found this musical very difficult to watch. Every production I have ever seen before which has taken as its theme, blacks in Britain in a contemporary setting, has always gone to great lengths to try and integrate and look past the skin colour and the differences that come with it. Here it seems (unless I have completely misunderstood the end) that the message is just the opposite. We are different, we don't mix, shouldn't mix, and we should keep our culture clean and pure. This was a celebration of their blackness.
From a directorial perspective, the three stick mics at each exit didn't work. The space is small and intimate enough for the cast of three to sing unamplified, however, if they were to be mic'd then personal body microphones should have been used, as they often travelled from one stand to the next whilst still singing or sometimes didn't use them at all, and so this half and half use of them was very odd.
From a writing perspective, the opening song / scene was somewhat out of place with the rest of the show. It started very much in the same way many of the Off-WestEnd experimental musicals of the 1970s did... with shock value. A young lady on stage proclaiming the virtues of her virgina etc (shades of 'Hair' or 'Oh Calcutta'). After the first scene however, it settled down into a more usual contemporary fringe style musical. There was no real storyline though as such; just enough to highlight the different nuances to black love and love in general.
Aurora and Orion worked very well together. There was a bond which they were able to spark off and from, whilst obviously siblings, their differences in temperaments and attitudes brought interesting clashes, which were highlighted by Louie's 'treading on eggshells' performance as she delivered an intelligently created character walking the difficult line between racism and realism. I also enjoyed the dynamics and changes in what became a status game throughout from all three performers.
Overall though, the musical was a little disjointed and I was uncertain where it 'fit in'. Part Meta-theatre, part Verbatim-theatre, part Musical, it seemed incohesive. Nonetheless it was a powerful production with three young performers who put heart and soul into their characters.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 9.9.21
Dear Matthew,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for coming to see BLACK LOVE. We wanted to get in touch to start a conversation about some of the thoughts you’ve shared in this review.
We understand that you found the show difficult to watch; we know that discomfort will often be a part of highlighting oppression, and of exploring pain.
Chinonyerem Odimba was inspired to write the play because portrayal of Black love, whether in families or otherwise, is thin in the stories we tell in theatre. She wants to spotlight that love and show it in its most profound expression. This, we hoped, would raise questions for audiences about why they don’t see depictions of that kind of intimate, loyal, and joyous Black love in stories in theatre.
The team don’t feel we have answers to those questions, and the verbatim in the show was an exercise in reaching across Chinonyerem’s network to keep alive that question. These verbatim moments are voiced in the show by a myriad of people – some actors, some non-actors/friends.
We certainly don’t feel that people of different racial backgrounds should not mix, or that in celebrating the love between a Black brother and sister that we are denying other forms of love whether romantic or familial. Our own creative and production team for BLACK LOVE is diverse and representative, with the team benefitting hugely as people and professionals from the range of experiences and lenses we share.
We entirely respect your right to your own thoughts on the show, and of its merits. We did, however, want to reflect back some of the language you’ve used to express those thoughts. As an example, the use of the term ‘blacks in Britain’, rather than, for instance, ‘Black people in Britain’ can feel degrading and dehumanising to Black readers. The phrase “clean and pure” when referring to ethnic cultures in the context of the questions BLACK LOVE is asking can also create painful associations, whether these are intended or not. Chinonyerem personally is particularly disturbed by the idea that work by Black writers should be going “to great lengths to…look past skin colour”.
We know that in reviewing a wide range of theatre, you are supporting independent artists and their audiences - blogs like yours are a really important part of theatre in the UK, and we appreciate the work that you and other writers like you do. The lens that reviewers bring, and the language that they use, is therefore also important, for audiences, artists and for reviewers themselves.
We’d really welcome a conversation with you about this, whether by email, phone or Zoom. Chinonyerem, BLACK LOVE’s writer and co-director, and Katie, our co-director, would be keen to speak and explore this more, so that we can be a part of moving the relationship between makers and reviewers forward together.
If you’d like to get in touch, please do email matt@painesplough.com, and we can arrange a conversation; if you would prefer not to, then we wish you all the best, and hope that some of these reflections are of interest and use.
Many thanks,
Paines Plough