Slave Play – Noël Coward Theatre, London

Writer: Jeremy O. Harris

Director: Robert O’Hara

Slave Play has never been far from the headlines since it debuted in New York back in 2018. It has been feted (nominated for more Tony Awards than any other play, at the time), hated (ample stories of people walking out mid-performance), and courted more than its fair share of controversy. And, as it makes its first-ever transfer to London, expect to see more of the same; it will delight and dismay as much here as it did in New York.

Set across three acts, Slave Play addresses sexuality, race, interracial relationships and power. In the opening act, we see three sexually charged, racially imbalanced scenes set in the McGregor Cotton Plantation.

In the first, whip-wielding slave manager, Jim (Kit Harrington) berates an overtly flirtatious slave girl, Kaneisha (Olivia Washington) for the state of the slave hut. She calls him master, which he visibly dislikes, and wants him to call her a ‘nasty, lazy, negress’. In scene two, the wife of a plantation owner, Alana (Annie McNamara) calls her butler, Phillip (Aaron Heffernan) to play ‘negro’ music for her on his violin. His playing bewitches and arouses her. In the final scene, a black slave, Gary (Fisayo Akinade) is in charge of a white indentured servant, Dustin (James Cusati-Moyer). He sees this shift in power, a black man in charge of a white man, amusing, which starts a fight between them.

Act One ends with all three couples engaging in sex, but sex where there’s a significant power imbalance between them. The scenes are oddly played out, the language seems clunky and disjointed, and the acting amateurish. Act Two opens in a group therapy session, and we realise that Act One showed three interracial couples acting out sexual fantasies. They are all taking part in an emerging treatment called ‘Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy’ that aims to address situations where black partners stop feeling sexually attracted to their white partners. The play continues through the therapy session where each couple addresses their issues and tries to get some form of closure or movement on from it.

The story plays with our perceptions of what’s going on and, in doing so, how we understand the emotional situation of what is occurring. There’s a lot to take in and process. The unfolding plantation scenes make for uncomfortable viewing when seen out of any context. The realisation that it’s a fantasy gives some release, but the ensuing therapy session makes us confront race head-on from a more emotional perspective and, as expected, is far from comfortable viewing. Writer Jeremy O. Harris is seeking to make the audience uncomfortable but to what end is never clear and, in the end, this play fails on nearly all accounts.

Firstly, the race element feels crowbarred into everything. Yes, this is a play that’s about race, but the multitude of elements debated in the therapy session could be factored into any other sexual relationship – the power dynamic, the shifting sense of self, the falling out of love. That this is anchored exclusively on race feels disingenuous. The battle between black and white feels unfair in today’s world, or at least in the UK. It may play better in the more racially charged and divided USA.

In one scene, Jim refers to himself as feeling like a virus which sets his wife off on a narrative that makes her admit that she sees him as a virus because he is of European descent and the Europeans brought disease to their continent. So, forget the sins of the father being put upon the son, he’s being held accountable for the sins of his possible great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfathers.

Moreover, there’s little understanding of the characters, how they get to where they are and what they’re really fighting for, so one’s emotional engagement in them is practically non-existent. This is further compounded by a nonsensical caricatured portrayal of the therapists as a pair of happy-clappy, air-headed hippies that feels intrusive rather than helpful.

As we move through Act Two, Kit Harrington becomes the audience’s hero. Not because of any brilliant acting, but because his portrayal of Jim’s anger, disdain, confusion, frustration, and disdain for the proceedings mimics our own.

Slave Play may have some very important things to say but it makes it near impossible to hear them. This is an uneven play that feels like it is doing more damage than good to race relations. But it will get people talking and maybe that’s the very thin silver lining here.

Runs until 21 September 2024