Writer: babirye bukilwa
Director: malakaï sargeant
When we first meet her, Eshe (Evlyne Oyedokun) is spiralling. Trapped on her bed by a leg injury that means any trip around the bedroom requires crutches, she is smoking dope and drinking her way into oblivion.
babirye bukilwa’s …blackbird hour is a continuation of a trilogy that started with …cake, in which Eshe and her mother, Sissy, explored their changing relationship as the daughter grew into adulthood.
In this second play of the trilogy, Sissy has since died, but her voice (played by Danielle Kassaraté, reprising her role from …cake’s 2021 Theatre Peckham run) intrudes into Eshe’s inner monologue. As Eshe descends further into mental chaos, Sissy’s voice passes judgement on those who want to help her daughter: Eshe’s ex-boyfriend Michael (Ivan Oyik) and her current girlfriend, Ella (Olivia Nakintu).
In these two characters, bukilwa presents multiple approaches to dealing with a loved one who is in crisis. Ella tries to respect Eshe’s wishes by keeping her distance; Michael is more hands-on but may have his own agenda. For all their words and actions, both are paralysed while watching their loved one circle the drain, not knowing if their action or inaction will help, or accelerate the decline.
While the nature of Eshe’s decline involves heavy subject matter, bukilwa gives Oyedokun a lot of humour to play with. Creative captions and musical interludes aid in illustrating the creativity at the heart of Eshe’s mind, even as it is becoming obliterated by drugs and alcohol.
The differences between Michael and Ella are perhaps delineated a little too harshly, with Nakintu in particular struggling with a character that is drawn in broad, vague strokes. Both actors come into their own in the play’s later moments as we come to see them from Eshe’s perspective: robotic, repetitive automata who talk about caring for her, but do anything but listen.
It is a surrealist coda to a play that, while only ever toying with realism, nevertheless feels more grounded and visceral in its opening hour. As the second part of a trilogy, it makes for an exciting, tragic continuation of a story replete with promise for the third.
But …blackbird hour absolutely stands on its own, a dark exploration of the effects of psychosis on an individual’s sense of self.
Continues until 1 March 2025