Play: Feast
Theatre: Young Vic
Playwrights: Yunior García Aguilera, Rotimi Babatunde,
Marcos Barbosa, Tanya Barfield and Gbolahan Obisesan
Review by Joy Francis
When you scan the menu, Feast offers theatrical gastronomy, steeped in West Africa’s Yoruba history, to tantalise the senses. This swan song from the London 2012 World Stages season has five young playwrights in the mix, backed by two leading theatres (Royal Court and the Young Vic); a tasty venture that screams “waiting list”.
Dipping into this exhilarating concoction spanning four centuries of the Yoruba diaspora, triggered by the transatlantic slave trade, leaves the taste buds with a complex blend of flavours. Some are misplaced, but many are truly memorable.
After an impressively haunting opening by Jamiroquai’s percussionist Sola Akingbola, the self declared “epic” production stylishly bombards us with Yoruba culture, tradition and sayings. With red as the signature colour, representing Shango, the God of Fire, a wryly charming Elegba (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith) guides us through its rich history.
When the feast-bound journey of three Orisha sisters (Oya, Yemaya and Oshun) is cruelly interrupted by the Atlantic slave trade in Nigeria, we are propelled into a rapid global history lesson about race and racism, cultural rituals, faith and sexuality.
In the late 1800s, an old female slave in Brazil struggles to embrace her freedom when released by her slaver’s son who she breast-fed at the expense of her own children. “Go and look for your children,” he spits, knowing it is a clearly a fruitless task.
Fast forward to a Pentecostal church in the Deep South where a preacher tells us that “a person who doesn’t know his ancestors doesn’t know his grandchildren”, a belief reinforced by the recurring characters of the Orishas, whose ancient names constantly link us to the past. As Elegba announced at the start: “Know you, do you, be your Orisha.”
An act of civil rights protest by black activists in a white-only diner in 1960, with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s oratory ringing gently in the background, sees a radical sister convert her more conservative one. Cuba, 28 years later, introduces an “anti-imperialist whore” patronising a desperate bankrupt white American who believes she can turn his fortunes around through the healing practices of the Santeria.
In London, during the 2012 Olympics, a young female medal winning sprinter is faced with unrelenting judgement by her old crew who question her racial allegiance and identity. By the end, we are reminded of the title, with family feasts in New York, London, Cuba and Brazil, where conflicts, betrayals, misunderstandings, gender politics and cultural challenges reign.
More mise-en-scène and cinematic montages than a play, director Rufus Norris unleashes an exciting multimedia and multi-art production. His confident use of animation and fine art interspersed with contemporary dance and Capoeira, fuelled by American Negro spirituals and West African music creates aural and visual splendor and spontaneity.
One of the strongest scenes is of an animated slave ship with faceless bodies undulating in cramped spaces. Their non-Yoruba names, weight, skin shade (“copper”, “black”), price and ages, written in an ancient hand, scroll across the stage.
As for the performances – outstanding. Naana Agyei-Ampadu, who effortlessly acts and sings like a Broadway stalwart, the ever solid Noma Dumezweni and the chameleon-like Holdbrook-Smith left a positive impression.
Despite being largely captivating, the London in 2012 section of Feast dragged me out of my wondrous state with a heavy slug of overbearing polemic and clunky history on the underlying presence of slavery in our urban youth cultures.
The admission that black men sleep with white women “out of revenge” felt dated and unexplained. It didn’t belong and needs an alternative creative space to breath.
With Feast, what was so energetically promised – a spectacular banquet of Yoruba culture – didn’t fully show up. The carefully crafted themes were left hanging, unconnected, at the end. What did arrive was well worth the attention: a majestic sensory experience with flashes of Yoruba wonder which only fell flat at the last hurdle.
Feast, a co-production between Young Vic and Royal Court Theatre, has been extended until 2 March 2013.