Black British Drama
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
BLACK BRITISH DRAMA Black British Drama: A Transnational Story looks afresh at the ways black theatre in Britain is connected to and informed by the spaces of Africa, the Carib- bean and the USA. Michael Pearce offers an exciting new approach to reading modern and contemporary black British drama, examining plays by a range of writers including Michael Abbensetts, Mustapha Matura, Caryl Phillips, Winsome Pinnock, Kwame Kwei- Armah, debbie tucker green, Roy Williams and Bola Agbaje. Chapters combine historical documentation and discussion with close analysis to provide an in- depth, absorbing account of post- war black British drama situated within global and transnational circuits. A signifi cant contribution to black British and black diaspora theatre stud- ies, Black British Drama is a must- read for scholars and students in this evolving fi eld. Michael Pearce is a Lecturer in Socially Engaged Theatre at the University of Exeter, UK. BLACK BRITISH DRAMA A Transnational Story Michael Pearce First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Michael Pearce The right of Michael Pearce to be identifi ed as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing- in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing- in-Publication Data Names: Pearce, Michael, 1977– author. Title: Black British drama : a transnational story / Michael Pearce. Description: New York : Routledge, 2017. Identifi ers: LCCN 2016051485| ISBN 9781138917859 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138917866 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315688787 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Black theater—Great Britain—History—20th century. | English drama—Black authors—History and criticism. | English drama—20th century—History and criticism. Classifi cation: LCC PN2595.13.B34 P43 2017 | DDC 792.089/ 960410904—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016051485 ISBN: 978- 1- 138- 91785-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978- 1- 138- 91786-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978- 1- 315- 68878-7 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC CONTENTS Preface vii Acknowledgements ix Notes on the text x Introduction 1 SECTION I The USA 25 1 African Americanisation, Black Power and black British drama since the 1970s 27 2 Black Power legacies in Kwame Kwei- Armah’s Elmina’s Kitchen , Fix Up and Statement of Regret 53 3 African American myths, music, icons in Mojisola Adebayo’s Moj of the Antarctic and Muhammad Ali and Me 70 vi Contents SECTION II The Caribbean 89 4 Creolisation and the creole continuum in Caribbean British drama 91 5 Coming to voice: Roy Williams’ The No Boys Cricket Club , Lift Off , Fallout and Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads 114 6 African accents: Bola Agbaje’s Gone Too Far! , Detaining Justice and Off the Endz 134 SECTION III Africa 153 7 Home to host- land and the hyphen in- between: African British diasporic dramas since the 1990s 155 8 Multiple personality diasporic disorder: Inua Ellams’ The 14th Tale and Untitled 178 9 Empathy in diaspora: debbie tucker green’s stoning mary , generations and truth and reconciliation 190 10 Conclusion 206 Index 216 PREFACE I am writing this just a few months after Britain’s decision to leave the EU and just before the Clinton versus Trump US election. In the background, the greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War. It is a time when politics in the West seems to be pulling at either the far left or far right sides of ideology. I teach a course on twenty- fi rst century black British drama at the Univer- sity of Exeter. We discuss prominent black British playwrights who have been making waves over the last fi fteen years. We contextualise their struggles and achievements in British and world history – slavery, colonisation, decolonisa- tion, Civil Rights, Black Power, Brixton riots, the Stephen Lawrence murder, 9/11, 7/7. Black British theatre is a barometer for a changing Britain. It tracks this evolving landscape through its exploration of themes of migration, race, belonging and nation. It is also a model for understanding the changes occurring in our rapidly globalising world regardless of our cultural back- ground or ‘race’ – whatever that word even means. In light of recent events, the issues embedded in the plays we discuss emerge more starkly than in previous years. It strengthens my belief that we are not studying works that speak to minority experiences. The plays speak to issues of global relevance that resonate with all individuals. My own experiences of migration have nurtured an interest in the move- ment of people across national borders, the meeting of cultures and their effects. I was born in Zimbabwe, where I grew up and became a member viii Preface of ‘Over the Edge’, the country’s fi rst professional multi- racial theatre com- pany. Since then I have lived in South Africa, the USA, France and the UK. Approaching an analysis of late twentieth and early twenty- fi rst century black British drama using a broader framework than the nation refl ects the way in which I make sense of and have experienced the world. Having lived in South Africa during apartheid, I have also on many occasions seen fi rst- hand the violence of racism and understood how racial difference is mobilised to divide and oppress. My career to date has been predicated on the belief that theatre can play a part in changing these belief systems and creating a better world. This book draws on research for my PhD which was awarded in 2012. Since the PhD more scholarship has emerged that makes connections between black British drama, the nation and beyond. This still remains an under- researched area, however, with much work to be done. Since the PhD, I have published essays about contemporary black British playwrights, conducted a number of fi lmed interviews with theatre practitioners for the National Theatre’s Black Plays Archive website and written a ten- part radio documentary about the history of black performance on the British stage and screen. The documentary was presented by Sir Lenny Henry and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in late 2015. I learned a lot working with Lenny Henry who has been vocal about the lack of ethnic diversity in the media in all areas and levels of production. Institutional racism lies at the heart of this inequality. But if deep change is going to occur, it must happen at the level of educa- tion. If black British theatre history is not taught then our knowledge literally becomes whitewashed. How we understand the world and ourselves in it comes from what and how things are represented. It follows that to not tell is to forget, to make something un- happen, to render it invisible. Only once structures of oppression are made visible can we begin to dismantle them. Exeter, October 2016 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to Nicola Abram, Katie Beswick, Mary Brewer, Colin Chambers, Kate Edwards, Lynette Goddard, Graham Ley, Daniel Malamis, Jane Milling, Kate Newey, Deirdre Osborne, Dan Rebellato, Talia Rodgers, Kerrie Schaefer, Cathy Turner. Thank you to the staff at the British Library, the George Padmore Institute, National Theatre Archive and the Victoria and Albert Museum. A special thank you to the practitioners I interviewed for this book and over the course of my research in this area, including Mojisola Adebayo, Ola- dipo Agboluaje, Yvonne Brewster, Denton Chikura, Felix Cross, Inua Ellams, Arinze Kene, Kwame Kwei- Armah, Mustapha Matura, Courttia Newland, Roy Williams. Special thanks to Gemma Birss, David Sabel and Christopher Stafford. NOTES ON THE TEXT Notes on terminology In this book race is understood to be a socially constructed and contest- able category. Throughout ‘black’ is spelt with a lower case ‘b’ indicating a non- essentialising term that refers to colour or racial identifi cation. The upper case spelling – ‘Black’ – is used to connote an Afrocentric identity or articulate a political position of empowerment (e.g. Black Power). Race and ethnicity are not used interchangeably. In the UK during the 1970s and 1980s the term ‘Black’ (adopted from the USA) signifi ed a political identity used by people of African, Caribbean and South Asian descent in solidarity against the white majority. For example, the Indo- Trinidadian playwright Mustapha Matura identifi es himself as Black. However, black was also used by the white majority as a blanket term which placed all non- white people into one homogeneous group. Today black tends to refer to people of African ancestry only. In this book, reference to specifi c countries and cultures is balanced with the use of much broader terms ‘Africa’ and ‘the Caribbean’. This usage responds to how some people self- identify with these continental/regional spaces. It also highlights how these vast and complex spaces become stream- lined within the UK whereby, over time, intricate cultural differences and specifi c ethnic identifi cations become fl attened out. Their usage also refl ects how these terms are employed as organising categories in the UK at a popular (e.g. Caribbean carnival), political and cultural (e.g.