DETAINING JUSTICE To 15 December.
London.
DETAINING JUSTICE
by Bola Agbaje.
Tricycle Theatre In rep to 15 December 2009.
5, 9-12, 14-15 December 8pm Mat 2pm 9 Dec, 4pm 5, 12 Dec.
Runs 1hr 35min No interval.
TICKETS: 020 7328 1000.
www.tricycle.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 30 November.
It’s not who you are, it’s what documents you have.
After ten minutes playwright Bola Agbaje seems a new Dario Fo, creating wild laughter out of political injustice. After twenty minutes things have quietened down, and by the half-hour point suspicions have awoken. Well before the end of Agbaje’s play on the asylum system, third and final contribution to the Tricycle’s enterprising ‘Not Black and White’ autumn, even the opening hilarity begins to seem as much down to the skill of its director and splendid cast.
Yet the script contains some lively, economically-written arguments between supposed allies. The action, though, limps along. Delays shifting quite minimal furnishings between the short scenes are covered by the movement of cast-members seated along the stage sides, and a low, attention-holding musical pulse - production devices to mask the script’s ramshackle construction.
There are ‘Western Union’ moments too. It’s not that the comments on empire and racism haven’t value or that Agbaje’s various characters might not make them. But there’s no reason why they should come just when they do, making them seem a conscious interruption by the writer rather than part of her imaginative creation.
What saves the day – and the play – (the undoubted humour aside) is that here is a play about asylum that, as the Trike season says, is not Black and White. The two camps are the Haves and Have Nots, the ‘Having’ being British citizenship.
Some points are glimpsed while remaining unexplored, like prosecutor Cole’s desire to help an asylum-seeker’s support organisation, and the humiliations those without papers undergo, creating a daily petty apartheid.
But the most interesting relationship is between Justice (a painfully symbolic name) and Grace, the sister who fights and suffers the near-obligatory young writer’s violent sex scene. Sharon Duncan-Brewster gives her intensity of purpose, showing Grace despondent in the midst of a high-energy Black church service and pleading with her brother’s anger against her, inspired by his fear.
If Duncan-Brewster’s performance is the heart of Indhu Rubasingham’s production, Rebecca Scroggs as a young asylum support worker brings a finely-controlled comic rapidity to her role in a play which might have benefited greatly from further work.
Mr Cole: Karl Collins.
Chi Chi: Rebecca Scroggs.
Grace: Sharon Duncan-Brewster.
Justice: Aml Ameen.
Abeni: Cecilia Noble.
Pra: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith.
Javon/Guard: Robert Whitelock.
Alfred: Jimmy Akingbola.
Ben: Abhin Galeya.
Guard/Passer-by: John Boyega.
Director: Indhu Rubasingham.
Designer: Rosa Maggiora.
Lighting: James Farncombe.
Sound: Tom Lishman.
Dialect coach: Majella Hurley.
Fight director: Bret Yount.
2009-12-03 17:27:45