Writer and Director: Lanre Malaolu
In Indian philosophies, a samskara is the mental impression left by the thoughts, intentions and actions that one has ever experienced. A memory store, perhaps, a groove on the LP of life that replays over and over, forming and shaping our present.
Writer, director and choreographer Lanre Malaolu takes that concept and applies it to the experience of being Black in today’s Britain. Four generations of men take turns to monologue about their experiences in short scenes that build to a powerful crescendo.
Ntonga Mwanza’s Young Buck shines out as a cocky, charismatic teen who rebels against his mother and teachers, and who holds onto prolonged resentment towards his absent father. The relationship between sons and father is prevalent here, as evidenced in the expectations and anxieties of new father Will Atiomo, who goes from having nightmares where he is a seahorse giving birth to his baby to watching himself become as detached from his son as his father was to him.
Other scenes re-emphasise the toxicity of some paternal relationships, particularly the expectation that the father should be the disciplinarian of the family, always ready with a slap or a belt if their children should step out of line. The struggle to escape that cycle of corporal abuse, to be a better father while not wishing to disrespect the fathers that have come before, is embodied well by Razak Osman and Cal-I Jonel.
Between scenes, dancer Paaliba Abugre delivers silent movements to drummer Demba Sow’s beats. A repeated motif sees Abugre trying to crack his chest open to reveal the heart underneath before his ribcage snaps shut once more. That motion represents the core of SAMSKARA: these men want to be able to express love, to receive love, but the strictures of toxic masculinity and tradition bind them.
Such restrictions and expectations are not only internal to themselves or the Black community. The very act of living as a Black man in Britain brings with it a weight of expectation. Malaolu writes strikingly about how black men are simultaneously visible and hyper-visible; how they are more than one thing, but don a hoodie and they become just one thing.
With any piece made up of short monologues, the question of how to build to an effective climax is a tricky one. SAMSKARA achieves this by bringing all the generations together, freeing themselves of the shackles of toxicity, and finding joy together.
It is a message of hope and love, a memory groove that forces its stylus to skip onwards to a happier, more joyful rhythm. And it is magical.
Continues until 23 July 2022
