Writer: Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini
Director: Jade Lewis
Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini’s Sleepova, a new commission for the Bush Theatre, is a high-spirited, warm-hearted celebration of young Black womanhood. Four teenage friends have finally managed to arrange a sleepover. It’s an innocent affair – there’s popcorn and sweets but no alcohol. They’re going to eat pizza and see a film. But what they mainly want to do is talk – about their lives now, their worries, their dreams.
The four are nicely differentiated. Shan, whose sixteenth birthday they are celebrating, nervously tidies her bedroom before her friends arrive. Her posters and cuddly toys signal her innocence, but in the course of the play she begins to discover she is attractive to boys. But we also learn of the illness that haunts her life: she has sickle cell anaemia.
Livewire Rey is proudly queer, funny and confident. ‘We can’t all wake up looking like me,’ she proclaims as she sets about to help the others with their make up. In contrast, Elle seems equally proud of her devout Christianity. She’s always quoting scripture but her tendency to start praying whenever the conversation get into dangerous territory betrays her anxious ambivalence.
Funmi is the natural leader, funny and sassy but she too wrestles with issues. Does her mother really love her? Why does she get left caring for her younger brother for a month when her parents go to Nigeria?
The four young actors are fantastic. Amber Grappy as Rey, Aliyah Odoffin as Shan and Shayda Sinclair as Elle really inhabit their roles, bringing to life both their youthful exuberance and their private anxieties. The show’s star, however is Bukky Bakray, whom audiences will know from the fabulous Rocks, who brings a natural warmth and charisma to the part of Funmi.
The play takes us through significant moments of their next couple of years. There’s the preparation for end of year celebrations, in particular the prom. The arrival of GCSE results is nicely handled. There’s no leaping in the air for a group photo here. Rather we hear the contents of their texts, watch them cope with the anti-climax that is probably more true to life than yearly images of celebration. Elle seems to have disappeared for the summer. We later find out her parents have sent her to a Christian camp in Bournemouth. ‘Is that near Dagenham?’ asks Shan. ‘And that’s why you didn’t pass Geography,’ snaps Funmi. But beneath the humour is the harsh truth that Elle’s parents sense she is struggling with her sexual identity and are determined to force her into conventionality. At camp the pastor questions her, tells her homosexuality is evil, that if she associates with people ‘with evil ways’ she can’t call herself a Christian.
Feyiṣayọ Ibini’s taut dialogue fizzes throughout and director Jade Lewis maintains the exuberant atmosphere of this celebration of young lives.
Runs until 8 April 2023
