Theatre / Reviews
REVIEW: …blackbird hour, The Weston Studio, Bristol Old Vic – ‘The actors compensate for a lack of action’
There is such a thing as a well-written but essentially unworkable play. That, in my opinion, is what we have in …blackbird hour, currently showing at Bristol Old Vic‘s Weston Studio.
Playwright babirye bukilwa’s script is poetic but not dramatic, leading to an overcompensation from actors attempting to fill 80 minutes with a play in which nothing happens.
The play shows Eshe (Evlyne Oyedokun) in grief, perhaps addiction, deteriorating in their bed. Eshe talks with their dead mum, Sissy (Danielle Kassarate), and is checked in upon by concerned Michael (Ivan Oyik) and Ella (Olivia Nakintu).
The production features interesting multimedia elements, including live off-stage voice acting and creative captions which form part of the set design. The looped police siren feels a little cheap as a piece of sound design, and the preponderance of crisp packets on the floor, relative to crockery or empty bottles, does leave you scratching your head a bit.
The actors, in general, do very well with an incredibly challenging script. Oyedokun has a tremendously difficult job, inserting motion into a fundamentally static piece of writing. Oyik is tasked with performing an underdeveloped Michael, whose sole purpose appears to be teeing up Eshe to deliver one-liners.
Of the three actors on stage, Nakintu is especially impresses – particularly in the surrealist segment towards the end of the play.
While the writing does has moments of genuine liveliness, these are outnumbered by lines that just don’t deserve their place in the script.
Paradoxically, though, I felt continually during the performance that the play would work much better as a published prose poem, and I still sort of do. The fact that the play takes place in almost entirely real-time and almost entirely in one room makes it enormously difficult to sustain for any writer.
At its best, …blackbird hour has moments of genuine dynamism and style; early on I was enjoying the slight dizziness of jumping from the visitations of Sissy, to lyric poetry, to slang.
Director malakai sargeant has attempted to bring this script – which was shortlisted for major accolades – to stage. The success of this script in prize terms doesn’t actually surprise me – I would be interested to read it myself.
Ultimately, though, drama constitutes things happening. And this play – for its occasional cleverness – has essentially no action.
…blackbird hour is novel enough in what it’s trying to be that it’s worth going to see, and the script is, in the end, an impressive piece of writing. All four actors are clearly of a high standard. For me, though, this production is a little less than the sum of its parts.
…blackbird hour is at The Weston Studio, Bristol Old Vic on March 4-8 at 8pm with an additional 3pm matinee show on Saturday. The show is presented by Vital Xposure, and supported by the Talawa Firsts programme, with thanks to the National Theatre. Tickets are available at www.bristololdvic.org.uk.
All photos: Seye Isikalu
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