Strained relations: Danny Sapani (Tshembe Matoseh) and Gary Beadle (Abioseh Matoseh). Photo credit: Johan Persson
Theatre: National Theatre
Play: Les Blancs
Playwright: Lorraine Hansberry
Director: Yaël Farber
Review by Irenosen Okojie
Les Blancs, Lorraine Hansberry’s largely unknown play, is an ambitious, geographically sweeping and provocative masterpiece on the ramifications of colonialism, and the power of revolution.
Highly charged, atmospheric and often surreal, this new version directed by Yaël Farber sees Hansberry’s vision brought to life in exquisite style.
Hansberry catapulted to fame with her play A Raisin in the Sun, which received critical acclaim and shattered boundaries as she was the first black woman to have a play on Broadway; (the film adaptation starred Sidney Poitier). There’s a deliberate shift with Les Blancs, which is vast and addresses a monumental historic wrongdoing.
Set in an unnamed African colony, Les Blancs moves between two worlds: the mission hospital and a tribal hut in a village close by. We have Charlie Morris (Elliot Cowan), a liberal journalist who arrives to write a positive feature on the mission, where a handful of well intentioned but ultimately misguided white people operate, including doctors Marta Gotterling (Anna Madeley) and Willy Dekoven (James Fleet).
Then there’s Tshembe Matoseh (Danny Sapani) who comes home from his new life in the west for his father’s funeral. He is tense and torn between these two worlds; between his desire to act as a catalyst for change in his homeland and the need to leave his past behind. Both Charlie and Tshembe arrive on the same day when the seeds of unrest begin to rear their hot heads.
Elliot Cowan is on fine form as Charlie Morris while Anna Madeley plays a cynical Dr Marta Goterling. Photo credit: Johan Persson
Danny Sapani gives a superb and towering performance and holds your attention with his conflicted and tortured Tshembe. Elliot Cowan is on fine form as the well intentioned yet naïve American photojournalist Charlie Morris.
There is great support from Gary Beadle as priest Abioseh Matoseh and Tunji Kasim as Eric, both Tshembe’s brothers. The fractious and dysfunctional dynamic between the three brothers provide an interesting subplot.
Anna Madeley’s portrayal of cynical Dr Marta Gotterling, James Fleet’s sardonic Dr Willy Dekoven and Sian Phillips’ elegant and quick witted Madame Neilsen add weight to a strong cast.
A stunning turn from Roger Jean Nsengiyumva as an incendiary whose nimble and stealthy physicality punctuates every call to action, each sentence suffused with anger, will leave you ruminating over the potency of revolution.
The smoky atmosphere, revolving wooden mission and hut, and the tall, lithe and stalking Sheila Atim as The Woman, who we assume to be Tshembe’s conscience, all burn into the memory cells. The singing from a group of matriarchs adds an element of African musical magic to this haunting, electric adaptation.
Tragically, Lorraine Hansberry died from pancreatic cancer aged only 34. In his memoir Sweet Lorraine, friend and writer James Baldwin fondly recalls their time together, filled with debate and activism as part of the Greenwich Village intellectual set.
Following her passing, singer Nina Simone penned the song “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” as a tribute to her. Had Hansberry lived, who knows what else she would have given the world.
While A Raisin in the Sun hones in on the African American experience, firmly grounded in domestic realism, Les Blancs is an even more impressive achievement: dialectical, marrying the personal and the political. It confronts the collision of black revolution and white imperialism.
The good news is through this fresh adaptation, British audiences finally get to experience the work of a singular, trailblazing talent who promised even more.
Les Blancs is at the National Theatre until 2 June 2016.