The catharsis of Adelle Leonce's performance as Angel will haunt me for a long time as she brings to life the searing hurt of Nat Martello-White's terrific writing.
This production is spellbinding and its momentum stays with me occupying my thoughts, whirring like the revolving stage. The text, finalised by Lorraine Hansberry's former husband and literary executor Robert Nemiroff, would bear much further study to grasp all its themes and nuances. Written from her viewpoint in the 1960s by American playwright Lorraine Hansberry, the original person to be described as "young, gifted and black", her unfinished play Les Blancs, examines an unnamed African country on the brink of revolution and independence from colonial rule. Lorraine Hansberry was in her mid thirties when she tragically died of pancreatic cancer.
Diana Atuona hasn't shied away from a difficult subject for a first play and her grasp of dialogue is excellent, as is the writing of this story that won't let go. The play takes place in the first Liberian Civil War, 1989 to 1996. We take up the story of 14 year old Martha (a magnificent first time performance from Juma Sharkah) who is about to be sent by her grandmother to the bush school where she will become a woman.