The relatively new Artistic Director of the National Theatre, Rufus Norris, hasn't won many fans so far with his rather grim programming of the UK's centre of theatrical excellence. There's been very little glamour and frivolity. Even a musical of ALICE IN WONDERLAND turned out to be little appreciated but there has been some fantastic drama and this latest production is a shining example of the kind of intelligent, hard hitting theatre that couldn't exist in the commercial market and which, I for one, am delighted to see at the NT.LES BLANCS (THE WHITES) isn't exactly an enticing prospect, three hours of conflict set in beleaguered African back water, sandwiched between Colonial oppression and local brutality. The author, Loraine Hansberry, whose play of black suburban U.S. family life in the 1950s, A RAISIN IN THE SUN, is justly celebrated, hadn't even finished it before her early death and the poster, with the title crudely painted over a black guys face makes it all look particularly miserable.
You'll have to take my word for it then, that it's a fascinating, richly rewarding evening that will make liberal thinkers and hard-line right wingers alike examine their preconceptions.
The action is set in an unnamed African country suggestive of South Africa during apartheid. Marooned amidst a sea of scorched dust is a little mission hospital or rather the skeleton of it as if it's struggling not to crumble away. As the play opens the white European hospital workers, incongruously carrying a cello and native villagers process around it through the heat haze to evocative and intoxicating live African chanting. An American journalist arrives in pursuit of a juicy Sunday supplement feature story of humanity winning out against adversity. What he discovers is a tangled web of mistrust, betrayals and insurgency that confounds him.
National treasure Sian Phillips is fantastic as the compound’s ageing matriarch who treasures the friendships and alliances of simpler times. Danny Sapani is fantastic as the village’s prodigal son returning from America for his father’s funeral and incensed at what he finds and Clive Francis and James Fleet are wonderful as a peppery colonel and a despairing old cynic respectively. In fact the whole cast is exceptional and have obviously been steeped in the cultural and politics of the play by director Yael Farber, who gave us an equally stunning production of THE CRUCIBLE at the Old Vic last year.
This isn't easy theatre. You have to listen and think but there are some extraordinary moments of human interaction and vivid imagery that have really stayed with me. Highly recommended.
Two words: treat yourself!