Review: One Way Out, Brixton House

Summary

Rating

Excellent!

A vibrant, uplifting and relevant production that honours the value of male friendship, the strength of community and the ongoing struggle against persistent racial prejudice affecting countless lives.

Four red plastic chairs in the middle of a square, facing out. Rap with localised lyrics (Streatham by Dave) on the speakers. The audience is close to the performance area, impatiently waiting. And then: four young men burst onto the scene. Play fighting and shouting, they move with energy and lightness, albeit with a reasonable amount of force. Then something happens: a misstep and the sound of breaking glass. They fall to their seats, black pointed hoodies covering their faces. Identities unknown, they face the audience, away from each other. The audience leans forward. We’re invested.

Lights up, hoodies down; the four young men reveal themselves. A mixture of ethnicities, they are local south London lads, in their final year of A-levels at college. They’re good friends, their relaxed interactions laced with familiar jokes and banter. They are also in school, being held to account for the broken window. Interestingly, all get different punishments: Jamaican Devonte (Joshua-Alexander Williams) gets the heaviest: a suspension. By contrast, the white boy, Paul (Joe Deighton) walks away with just a warning. Make of that what you will. In reality, Devonte has taken the blame for something that wasn’t his fault, because it was Tunde (David Alade) who broke the glass. It’s tough: they are in the final few weeks of revision for their exams, and Devonte and Tunde in particular are keen to do well. For them, education is the way out. Devonte, Tunde and Salim (Adam Seridji) are respectful of their families. For Paul, it’s different. Clearly, there are issues with an abusive father at home, who is scathing of the value of education. For all, their vulnerability is achingly obvious: so young and on the cusp of the rest of their lives, these A-Levels could make all the difference.

This is a play about community and about family, whoever family is, and interestingly, the audience is very much a part of that mix. They whoop and holler and enjoy the dancing as the boys show off to each other. It’s a play about mutual support and safe places: for the boys, it is their local youth club, but in a move reflecting reality, we hear it is to be shut and they will lose their safe place. It is also a play about identity and assumptions. It’s easy for the white boy to charm his way through school, but he has less family support than the others. And of course, it is also a play about incessant, unending racial prejudice and the harm that it causes.

The writing is excellent: on point, never too saccharine but packing an emotional punch. The small performance space, surrounded on three sides by the audience, serves almost to eradicate the separation between audience and performer: a device that creates a space for dialogue by having the community both witness the performance and be part of the solution.

All four actors are very accomplished: Williams breaking my heart the most, I think. They weave subtly with energy, and are at times reflective, sometimes reactive. The audience lives each emotion with them all the way.

I have deliberately avoided the big plot game changer. No spoilers here, but I will say that, in a move that is entirely in keeping with the subtle and contemporary writing, it introduces a topic that shocks to the core. Not new necessarily, but one that I had no idea would affect this demographic.

This is Montel Douglas’s debut play. WOW. Watch this space.

Writer & Director: Montel Douglas

Creative Producer: Nora Lempriere

Presented by No Table Productions

Composer & Sound Designer: Francesca Amewudah-Rivers

One Way Out plays at Brixton House until Saturday July 5.