Beneatha's Place by Kwame Kwei-Armah. The Young Vic, 66 The Cut, London SE1 to 5 August 2023. 3***. William Russell.
Stimulating and challenging and very well performed this play probably deserves more stars except for me at least there were times when it was very difficult to make out just what the two leads in particular were saying. A quiet conversation in real life is one thing but actors need to project to the audience and it wasn't happening - maybe it was due to a flaw in the Young Vic's acoustics, as it did seem that the enthusiastic reactions were coming from the middle section rather than from the side seats., but at times it left wondering why something said had elicited such a strong response. This did take away from the overall impact of what is a play which deals with the colonial past and the fraught present and gives much to think about and argue over afterwards. Beneatha (Cherrelle Skeete) has come to Lagos from America in 1959 with her activist husband Joseph (Zackary Momoh) to start a new life and take over their new home from a splendidly patronising white couple, an echo of Clybourne Park which, along with A Raisin in the Sun inspired the play. It is funny and stimulating and ends in violence. Years later she returns to the house, now a dean of African studies at an Ivy League college to have a discussion with colleagues about the future - is race as we know it dead, have white students realised the guilt of the past and black students are more interested in what lies ahead. The arguments are interesting and it is never boring but what carries the piece is the power of the playing - Skeete is magnificent, and Momoh does an impressive double as her husband in Act One, which is all action, and her lecturer protege in Act Two, which is all talk. But the failure of some of the dialogue to come across does matter for a play which has some stunning cases to argue and uses Beneatha's collection of masks, including a horrific gollywog face, to back them up.
Sebastian Armesto - Daniel Barnes/Professor Mark Bond; Jumoke Fashola - Professor Shirley Jones/ Aunty Fola; Tom Godwin - Mr Nelson/Professor Gary Jacobs; Nia Gwynne - Mrs Nelson/ Dr Harriet Banks ; Zackary Momoh - Joseph Asagai/Wale Oguns; Cherrelle Skeet - Beneatha.
Director - Kwame KweiArmah; Designer -Debbie Buru; Lighting Designer - Mark Henderson; Sound Designer - Tony Gayle; Movement Director - Shelley Maxwell; Voice and Dialect Coach -Esi Acquaah-Harrison; Production Photographs - Johan Persson.
