Tag Archives: Ukweli Roach

“Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train” at the Young Vic

Prison dramas are pretty much a genre in their own right and this play from the year 2000 by Stephen Adly Guirgis must rank as one of the best. Tackling faith and justice, it’s a big issues piece with brains that leaves you with plenty to think about. It’s also full of compelling stories with a great plot. Entertaining and intelligent, what’s not to admire?

Guirgis writes the most wonderful roles and dialogue. Still, in presenting a debate, no matter how smart, each part could become a mere mouthpiece. With the help of a strong cast and expert direction from Kate Hewitt, every character is compelling and believable.

Ukweli Roach and Oberon KA Adjepong perform as two convicts thrown together during the one hour outside their cells allowed to them. It’s a simple enough device, but the detail provided by Guirgis is used to great effect by both men. Roach gives an emotional performance as the young Angel Cruz that shows the strain of incarceration gradually and wins sympathy carefully. As Lucius, you might guess that Adjepong gets the best lines, but the combination of charm and mania with which they are delivered is magnificent.

Unwell Roach and Dervla Kirwan

On the other side of the “cage”, Dervla Kirwan gives a great performance as Angel’s lawyer, driving the plot with excellent story-telling skills. The prison guards, played by Matthew Douglas and Joplin Sibtain, present moral ambiguities in a way that feels natural, respectively relating to the criminals in a personal and psychopathically macro level. These three, presumably the characters we are supposed to identify with most, pose provoking challenges to the audience.

Guirgis presents a fallible justice system and religious questions while avoiding the quagmires of moral relativism or scepticism, which means we can get some real-world thinking done! Any revival of a play this good is worth checking out. Hewitt’s production is certainly stylish. In a sense, she works harder than she has to. Using bright lights and discordant jazz in between scenes proves wearying and the set from Magda Willi, while effective, is a little showy. But the most important job, namely understanding and doing justice to the text, is precise and impeccable throughout.

Until 30 March 2019

www.youngvic.org

Photos by Johan Persson

“Nightfall” at the Bridge Theatre

This is only the third show at the South Bank’s newest venue and the stage itself continues to impress. Transformed again – thrusting out into the audience and with glorious backdrops courtesy of Rae Smith – it’s a clever design for Barney Norris’ intimate new play. But, despite the addition of strong work from director Laurie Sansom, there’s a suspicion that this intergenerational family drama would benefit from a smaller home. And while Nightfallis well-crafted and well-performed it is also, unfortunately, a little bit dull.

Norris is a young writer of exciting promise. Credit to the venue for giving him such a break. As a mother and her adult children struggle as farmers, and fight to shape new lives after a bereavement, there is a lot of potential for emotion. There are secrets and lies aplenty and strong dialogue, although both are a touch predictable. The play’s quality feel makes criticism sound harsh, but this is very much a talking heads affair that combines a streak of sentimentality with a studiousness that is uninspired.

A look at rural life makes a welcome change in a London theatre. So it is frustrating that the setting gets lost, with surprisingly little sense of what a working farm is like and what living on one might entail. Brother and sister, Ryan and Lou, along with their best friend and her fiancé Pete, are well-rounded character studies and Ophelia Lovibond, Sion Daniel Young and Ukweli Roach all acquit themselves well. But there seems too little to distinguish them from their urban contemporaries. The play’s focus is really the theme of grief, which Norris tackles movingly. This is where the real meat lies, with Claire Skinner as the matriarch Jenny putting in a fine performance – although, for my money, Lovibond steals the show. And yet, while the characters are developed they aren’t fascinating. And the plot is involving, but too slim. As the stakes are raised to compensate we arrive at a drama of over-powering mother love too quickly, leaving Skinner lost and the play unconvincing.

Until 26 May 2018

www.bridgetheatre.co.uk

Photo by Manuel Harlan