I’ll never forget the moment in Michael Buffong’s production of All My Sons when Don Warrington’s Joe Keller visibly shrank when his son Christopher (Chike Okonkwo) finally recognised his guilt. If I’d been watching it on screen, it would clearly have been a camera trick; on stage, I can only assume there was some sort of alchemy going on.
Similarly powerful was the moment in his production of A Raisin in the Sun when, having been given some records of African music by Nigerian suitor Joseph (Damola Adelaja), Tracy Ifeachor’s Beneatha attempts through dance to form some sort of connection with the music they contain. In every other production I’ve seen, the scene is played for laughs, and quickly forgotten. Here, though, a connection is made that is as real as it is moving; one that is so palpable the audience feels it too.
Moments like these don’t just hit home in and of themselves, however. Their incredible impact is earned by every aspect of each production being perfectly honed and weighted, and each part being harnessed to the whole.
I’d have to ask the Director about his methods to be sure of how he and his company achieve these things, but it seems to me that brilliant casting must be bolstered by finding the real essence of each moment, getting to the heart of each character, and polishing each facet of the story, finding what is essential, and discarding what is not.
I’m sure there are many theatre companies that could say the same; but, with Talawa, it also seems that none of this is allowed to weigh the actors down, so that, once in front of an audience, they don’t so much ‘act’ as embody their characters in all of their subtleties and complexities. With no distance between the actor and the role, there is likewise no distance between us and them. The resulting clarity, immediacy and emotional truth are breathtaking.
Play On! is the first Buffong-directed musical I’ve seen; but given the above, my expectations where high – and more than met.
The central conceit of the piece is the transplanting of various elements of Twelfth Night to 1940s Harlem, which works at least as well as any other Shakespeare-inspired work I’ve seen. No prior knowledge is needed in order to fully enjoy the show, however: whilst for any fan of the Bard there’s plenty of fun to be had in recognising who’s based on whom, and which elements of the plot are borrowed, this is a standalone piece with an excellent pedigree, rather than something merely derivative.
Despite being built around music by no less a luminary than Duke Ellington, nor could the show – conceived by Sheldon Epps, with book by Cheryl L. West – be categorised a jukebox musical (and yes, I did have to resist the obvious ‘Duke-box’ pun). Whilst the soundtrack is one of Play On’s many, many strengths, this is in part due to the way the music is used not just structurally, but – as with all great musicals – also to illuminate character, to create tone, to move the plot on.
There is likewise a pleasing lyricism in the way the text is delivered, though never to the extent that any passage is allowed to slip into being no more than a tune, however well-delivered that tune might be; yet another example of things being just right.
As for the music itself – wow! The on-stage band is so good the show would be worth catching for their input alone. Add to that some truly incredible voices, and even the hardest heart would be swiftly won over. Any one of the first three numbers, and many that follow, would be the stand-out track in most musicals, to the extent that I was often left wondering where the show might go next. This isn’t just any production, though; this a Buffong / Talawa production, so there are wide musical and dramatic palettes, and never any danger of each number simply trying to top the one before.
Indeed, though I’ve seen the show described as a jazz musical, there is more than a hint of blues and even soul helping to add variety.
With a strength-in-depth I probably last saw matched by Buffong’s own King Lear, listing those whose work impressed on the night would involve no more than cutting-and-pasting the names of everyone in the cast and crew from the programme; so let me instead sign off by saying – whether or not you think you’re a fan of musicals – this one is one not to miss.
Nature poetry. For too long, it’s been the domain of soft-focus sentimentality: predictable scenes of meadows, rivers, and, yes, even gliding gulls.
As 2024 draws to a close, it’s impossible not to marvel at how much has been accomplished in just one year. This
Call for Submissions: Glow: City at Night Poems The Broken Spine is excited to announce that submissions for our latest slimline anthology,
The Broken Spine is a poetry and arts collective proudly published on the coastal edge of North-West England. Founded in 2019 by Alan Parry and Paul Robert Mullen – two school friends reunited after twenty years through a mutual love of poetry.
