Theatre review: Unknown Rivers

Chinonyerem Odimba’s Unknown Rivers is a reaction against stereotypes about black women, particularly the “strong black woman” trope, which Odimba feels is an expectation that only adds more pressure to a group with a higher-than-average tendency towards mental illness. She offers as an example four women of colour, two of whose mental health problems are quite quickly apparent, but all of whom have had issues with depression at some stage in their lives. When Nene (Nneka Okoye) became a teenage mother she retreated completely from the outside world: She never leaves the flat, and looks after her daughter when she’s at home but her mother Dee (Doreene Blackstock) has to take her to school, the playground and anywhere else outdoors. Nene’s best friend Lea (Renee Bailey) has been visiting her twice a week ever since she got ill, and thinks the time might have finally come for her to brave the outside world.

Their attempt at a day out starts disastrously, as the quiet restaurant Lea chooses still seems too frighteningly busy for Nene, who keeps imagining she sees a particular man appearing out of the crowd.

But Nene’s work friend Lune (Aasiya Shah) has invited herself along, and after her brash and hyperactive personality takes Nene a little while to get used to, she seems to make her a lot more confident. If anything, Nene goes to a more manic extreme and, remembering the time her mother taught her to swim and wanting to be able to recreate the experience with her own daughter, decides to break into a local swimming pool. The scenes of the three young women are interspersed with monologues from Dee, who relates her own feelings about motherhood, as well as telling a Nigerian folk story about a princess who turns into a mermaid, which feeds into the play’s theme of water as a symbol of liberation. Blackstock holds the attention with her stories, although Daniel Bailey’s production is a bit too grounded in reality for the moments Nene’s own story suggests a dip into magical realism.

I feel like a broken record where Hampstead Downstairs is concerned but this is another play that seems like it’s a couple of drafts away from reaching its potential; as usual you end up humming the set (Amelia Jane Hankin’s design includes neon rivers and an on-theme water feature) and wishing a little bit of that design budget could have gone to the script development department. I could have particularly done with it being clearer whether Dee is genuinely unaware of the circumstances behind her daughter becoming pregnant (and how that impacted on her mental state) or if she’s deliberately keeping herself in the dark because it’s too difficult to face. Unknown Rivers is a likeable play, which despite its subject matter touching on depression and self-harm is ultimately optimistic. But all in all it’s a little bit too gentle to make as much impact as it might have, which is a shame given it’s identified an interesting and important issue.

Unknown Rivers by Chinonyerem Odimba is booking until the 7th of December at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs.

Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Robert Day.