A tiring and emotional experience

One of life's more reliable rules is that by the end of any play about alcoholism you'll be desperate for a stiff drink.

This new play by Rhashan Stone holds true to this rule, with an ending that is bleak and, to me, incomprehensible. Its concluding scenes slip into the sort of foul-mouthed nightmare deemed de rigueur by modern drama types.

This is a pity, for until then the play had been interesting and rather moving.

Mona (Dona Croll) is a 50-yearold black woman 'edging over to the slow lane' of life in a grotty part of London. Out of nowhere her ex-love Lenny (Derek Griffiths), unseen for 32 years, arrives at the door. Lenny has changed. He has a smart car, two wallets, aftershave that 'smells like Kew Gardens' and a white wife. He is also in Alcoholics Anonymous.

At first Mona laughs, then crumbles. As she recalls a baby lost in a miscarriage all those years ago, any spectator's eyes will surely prickle with tears. Croll and Griffiths are fluent and subtle. Playwright Stone catches the inventiveness of black English, from the snobbish shopper 'walking like she had a boiled sweet stuck up in her poom-poom', to the teenager (Ricci McLeod) who complains that, 'I got my mum burning up my Nokia all night, stressing me out, wanting to know where my dad is, then I start to get vex'.

It all ends unhappily. Plays about drink always do. Although this play is part of a state-sponsored black theatre initiative, and although the programme carries some crashingly feeble platitudes about racial discrimination, the blackness is not essential in the story. Many of the observations could as easily be made by non-black characters. But that would rob us of Croll and Griffiths, and two superb, award-worthy performances.

Two Steps Forward One Step Back: Contemporary Art In Pakistan Since 1980: Lecture

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in