TIL 7 JULY HR
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AN OCTOROON Dorfman<br />
After its success at Richmond’s Orange<br />
Tree Theatre last year, American Playwright<br />
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Obie-awardwinning<br />
play has arrived, complete with the<br />
original cast, for a limited run at the<br />
National Theatre.<br />
Playful, inventive and full of surprises –<br />
as well as forcing one to confront serious<br />
issues of race and reality – it begins simply<br />
enough with Ken Nwosu as Jacobs-<br />
Jenkins’ alter ego, BJJ, strolling on stage<br />
wearing nothing but his socks and<br />
underpants and recounting a session with<br />
his therapist (although it turns out he<br />
doesn’t really have one) in which he<br />
discusses the problems of staging a play<br />
without enough white actors. He decides to<br />
white up and take on the roles of both<br />
George (the handsome young man who<br />
has inherited a debt-ridden Louisiana<br />
plantation) and M’Closky (the evil overseer<br />
determined to take it over) in his<br />
reinventing of Irish actor-playwrightmanager<br />
Dion Boucicault’s long-running<br />
1859 hit melodrama, The Octoroon.<br />
This new version flashes from<br />
conversations between house slave Dido<br />
(who, tellingly, states that she wouldn’t<br />
know what do to with her freedom if she<br />
had it) and Vivian Oparah’s younger<br />
Minnie, discussing the fate of their fellow<br />
slaves (who can be sold – or bedded –<br />
at a master’s whim) to encounters between<br />
George and heiress Dora (determined to<br />
marry him – until she learns of his love for<br />
Iola Evans’ gentle Zoe, the octoroon of the<br />
title who could pass as white but crucially<br />
is one eight black )<br />
Add to the mix a subplot involving a<br />
murdered slave (played by a blacked up<br />
white actor) and a gin-loving Native<br />
American (another white actor in redface –<br />
who also plays a white man with a bad<br />
reaction to too much sun), and a life size,<br />
tap-dancing embodiment of Br’er Rabbit –<br />
not to mention the heroic efforts of Nwosu<br />
rapidly swapping George’s powdered white<br />
wig for M’Closky’s hat and villain’s<br />
moustache to fight with himself – and Ned<br />
Bennett’s pacey, deliberately exaggerated<br />
production proves both entertaining and<br />
thought-provoking. Louise Kingsley<br />
BROKEN WINGS TAKES FLIGHT FOR<br />
THE WEST END<br />
Broken Wings, a major new musical,<br />
and autobiographical tale of tragic love<br />
based on Lebanese-born poet Kahlil<br />
Gibran’s 1912 masterpiece is to receive<br />
a West End prermiere at the Theatre<br />
Royal Haymarket from 1-4 August. Cowriter<br />
Nadim Naaman leads the cast as<br />
the iconic Gibran, the show’s narrator.<br />
The setting is New York City, 1923. An<br />
ageing Gibran narrates from his cold<br />
studio. Through poetry and music, he<br />
transports us back two decades and<br />
across continents, to turn-of-the-century<br />
Beirut. His 18-year-old self returns to<br />
The Middle East after five years living in<br />
America, to complete his education and<br />
discover more of his heritage.<br />
Gary Jordan as Zazu in Disney’s awardwinning<br />
musical The Lion King, now in<br />
its 19th triumphant year at London’s<br />
Lyceum Theatre. Photo: Helen Maybanks.<br />
T H I S I S L O N D O N M A G A Z I N E • T H I S I S L O N D O N O N L I N E<br />
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