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Racial fog revisited
BIG WHITE FOG
Almedia Theatre
THEODORE Ward’s Big White Fog was so radical for its time that it ran for only four nights at its first performance in 1938.
Based on true events the play proved painful for black audiences because it reminded them too starkly of their rotten social conditions.
It was only 50 years later in 1995, 12 years after Ward’s death, that the play triumphed in the United States.
The story tells of a black family who are ruined in the early days of the 1930s Depression after the father invests all his life savings in Marcus Garvey’s Africa for the Africans organisation, which later collapses. The daughter turns to prostitution, the father is shot resisting arrest and it is only the son who bands together his black and white comrades to defend the family.
The title refers to the systematic discrimination blacks experienced at the hands of whites before the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Britons will know we have our own ‘white fog’ with more young black people excluded from school, unemployed, in prison or in mental institutions in this country than any other group. We even have a word for it: ‘institutional racism’. The shattering struggle of a pair of black parents battling to do their best for their children against this resonates for many of us.
Danny Sapani is most impressive as the father, Victor Mason. A big, stocky man whose physical demeanor is of the good, solid blue-collar family man, he performs with great power. Jenny Jules is a little miscast as his wife Ella, being rather slight and too young for the mother figure.
Novella Nelson, a stalwart of American theatre, film and television, is a scene stealer with her biting portrayal of the bitter mother-in-law. I loved her cutting, witty drawl shot from the rocking chair like unexpected gunfire.
Clint Dyer’s portrayal of the errant brother is also affecting and funny, a very real expression of the downward spiral many young black males can be sucked into.
Though Jonathan Fensoms’ set was marvellous, director Michael Attenborough occasionally over-directed the action, with too much opening and closing of doors and a lot of movement where motionlessness might have better conveyed a strong emotional charge. It was like a never ending episode of The Cosby Show.
A good production and also a play of great historical significance.
Until June 30
020 7359 4404 |
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