Tuesday evening I went to see Slave Play at the Noel Coward Theatre.
It was written by Jeremy O.Harris, (when there is a middle initial you know they are American), and was apparently the most Tony-nominated play in the award’s history, though they didn’t say whether it actually won any. Directed by Robert O’Hara, it starred Game of Thrones actor Kit Harington
At the MacGregor Plantation the Old South is alive and well. The heat in the air, the cotton fields and the power of the whip. Yet nothing is quite as it appears… or maybe it is. The production began with three cameo scenes of mixed race couples acting out sexual fantasies from the Deep South. I wasn’t sure what was happening, then again I usually have lots of questions. A giant black dildo employed on a Gone With the Wind-style four-poster bed, along with antebellum master-slave cosplay and a tongue-frenzy of sexualised boot licking. There was a trigger warning about nudity in the program, and I wasn’t disappointed. Ok, you have my attention but wtf….
The fourth scene opened in a modern day therapy session and I learnt that the play was about these three interracial couples as they undergo relationship counselling. The therapists were crazy southerners (more likely from LA) – all affirmations and ‘we hear you’ and lots of ‘processing’ of ‘micro-aggressions’. Funny, but a stereotype.
All the black partners simultaneously lose their desire and love for their white counterparts, (I lost my love of these therapists) and soon the couples enter the controversial ‘Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy’ to help identify and rectify any problems that have arisen.
The play was allegedly about race, sex, power relations, and trauma facing twenty-first century America, attempts to uncover current racism and micro-aggressions through the lens of slavery. The title refers both to the history of slavery in the United States as well as sexual slavery role-play. Actually also about Kit getting his kit off.
Harington’s character was the only semi-sane person. Unfortunately the therapists rather trivialised what presumably was intended as a serious subject. One couple spoke incomprehensibly and overall direction was lacking. A lost opportunity in my view.
Father M 