WALK HARD - TALK LOUD. To 24 December.
London
WALK HARD - TALK LOUD
by Abram Hill
Tricycle Theatre To 24 December 2005
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Sat 4pm & 7, 14 Dec 2pm
BSL Signed 15 Dec
Runs 2hr 35min One interval
TICKETS: 020 7328 1000
www.tricycle.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 28 November
Energy and passion pack quite a punch in period piece rediscovery.
Here’s a voice, loud and clear, from 1944 America. It’s the story of a fighter, Andy Whitman, tough in his mind as with his fists, and needing to be. For despite his name, so close to ‘White man’, Andy is Black and his fight is for dignity and equality as much as boxing prizes.
No wonder, then, he’s first seen on the streets, defending his right to a shoeshine pitch and getting picked up by Mac Macdonald’s prosperous promoter. Yet it’s Mack’s dominant partner Lou Foster who rules the roost and chooses the champs. Lou’s an establishment in himself, with a finger in everyone else’s pie, so it doesn’t go down well when Andy refuses to spend the night before a bout round at the (Black) bellhop’s place rather than in the hotel whose racist owner happens to be one of the prizefight judges.
While White America’s prejudiced and morally loose, life in the black quarter is filled with loyalty and community – a contrast caught in Mike Britton’s designs, where shabby glamour contrasts honest practicality. And there’s a fine sense of urban Black America in performances that hold considerable promise for the Tricycle’s Black ensemble season, including the practical wisdom of Carmen Munroe’s Betty and Joseph Marcell’s Charlie.
Especially, Kobna Holdbrook Smith’s Andy perfectly matches physical toughness and mental resilience. It’s the loudest condemnation of the society around him that his initial aim in boxing is to earn the money to leave the USA. Standing upright, determining his actions thoughtfully, carrying them out with economical determination, this is a fine portrayal.
Black American Abram Hill (1910-1986) wrote with the raw passion and optimism still available to progressive America in the thirties and forties. It can seem naïve, as in Andy and girlfriend Ruth’s last moment commitment to each other. But it pulses with an energy which infuses the Tricycle. Where the production’s less sure-footed is in the White crowd, with its hand-me-down drunks, a Fixit who carries little threat and a White Champ fighter with a laugh that seems to have detached itself from its owner like something out of Gogol.
Bobby/Bartender/Announcer: Andres Williams
Mack: Mac McDonald
Andy Whitman: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
Mr Berry/Charlie: Joseph Marcell
Lou Foster: Rupert Farley
Happy: Lucian Msamati
Mickey: Will Norris
Larry Batchello: Stephen Beckett
Becky: Carmen Munroe
Ruth: Ony Uhiara
Aunt Susie: Jenny Jules
Dorothy: Catherine Bailey
Sadie: Lydia Fox
Clerk/Reporter: Nathan Osgood
Bellhop: Olayinka Giwa
Lady Friend: Flora Montgomery
Director: Nicolas Kent
Designer: Mike Britton
Lighting: Ace McCarron
Sound: Paul Bull
Assistant director: Thierry Lawson
2005-12-05 15:46:05