ear for eye
Royal Court Theatre, London

BLACK is so much more than a colour. It’s a brutal truth that, if your skin is black, the world responds to you with hostility.

And in her new play, ear for eye's writer and director debbie tucker green, in brilliant rainbow hues, shares what it’s like to live within a black skin and to daily face entrenched assumptions that go way beyond prejudice from time immemorial.  

A superbly acted ensemble piece, it has all the verbal pyrotechnics and structural precision of a long and vivid poem. Its three-part narrative, more telling in its abandonment of chronological progression, reveals the depth of experience in the moment.

In the first, we're immediately immersed in a conversation between a young man and his mother. She's advising him how to position his hands when facing the authorities and we see how his body language appears aggressive, provocative or threatening whatever he does simply because he is African-American.

Varying sequences on the same theme in both the US and Britain ensue, all put in context by a thrilling outpouring of passion, delivered faultlessly by Angela Wynter, which captures the age-old pride and dignity in being black and the extent and power of its legacy.  

Part two, hugely entertaining, sees a Caucasian man offering some sort of therapy to an African-American woman. Not only is the therapist, played with superb arrogance by Demetri Goritsas, laughably locked into his own particular indoctrination but we see in the woman (a sweet, reasoning and gradually despairing Lashana Lynch) the cultural alienation of white-dominated psycho-dogma and the consequent impossibility of being heard.

The concluding part consists of filmed statements about the history of slavery and segregation that has emerged as structural racism in the modern world and shapes black consciousness today. It’s as vivid an analysis of what it means to be black as I have seen and speaks on behalf of millions.

Running at over two hours without a break, such intensity can be hard on an audience and some repetition could be eradicated. But, immaculately performed, this play forces us all to feel the pain of the black experience and it's a piece of profound importance.

Runs until November 24, box office: royalcourttheatre.com.