I saw this double bill at the Tricycle last November and I was hooked.
Written in the Sixties by Alice Childress, Wine In The Wilderness is set during the civil-rights riots of that time. The main themes of colour and of what men sometimes expect of women make you want to jump out of your seat.
The performances are strong, particularly Jenny Jules as "Tommy", the downtrodden female. I was eight-and-a-half months pregnant at the time, and I thought towards the end, I mustn't cry because I'll start to get nosebleeds - and I didn't want to be sitting there in this puddle of tears and blood. So I spent half of the show biting my lips.
It's really moving - and frustrating at the same time - because the central male character is very much involved in black civil rights. Sister and brother, he calls everyone - but he wants to subjugate the women around him. The tragedy of Tommy, the lead female character, who is this feisty, hard-bitten Harlem girl, is that she doesn't conform to his idea of femininity. No modern woman expects to be taken care of - she's more independent. And yet she's still expected to be feminine, the way women used to be. But you've got to be tough to survive!
Wine In The Wilderness is preceded by Winsome Pinnock's fascinating new play Water. Set in the world of modern art, it centres on a Brit Art celeb being interviewed by a journalist. It breaks down the image of modern art as sacred and reveals the PR games we play out in our own minds. The quality of performances in both plays is unusually strong - the Tricycle was buzzing when I went to see them. Even Cat from Red Dwarf was there!
