Theatre review: The Story

Sometimes when a new Artistic Director takes over a building it can feel like there's been a deliberate effort to get designers to reimagine how the stages can be used, and as we go into Indhu Rubasingham's second year at the National I can't help wondering if that's what we're getting there: After Electra/Persona's staircase going down to meet the front of the Lyttelton Stalls, Anna Fleischle cuts the front apron off the Olivier and adds a back wall to turn the vast stage into something comparatively intimate, a high school basketball court to frame Clint Dyer's production of The Story. This mix of the epic and the intimate is something that's reflected elsewhere in Tracey Scott Wilson's 2003 play, which has a large supporting ensemble building up the background of racial tensions ramping up in Philadelphia, but is ultimately focused on a quartet of journalists and the way they investigate them.

A white teacher has been shot dead in a predominantly black neighbourhood; his widow (Antonia Bernath) stating that the killer was black sees her accused of racism, while giving the police an excuse to double down on profiling young black men.

But the actual identity of the killer is what's missing from the story, and what the reporters at the local newspaper are as keen to pin down as the police are. Yvonne (Letitia Wright) is a promising young journalist who's dating the nepo-baby editor of the news team. To avoid being too obvious about giving his girlfriend a job, Jeff (Wilf Scolding) gets her onto one of the supplements, a predominantly black team investigating social justice issues and led by the formidable Pat (Lorraine Toussaint.)

Yvonne struggles to impress her new boss until she finds a new angle on the big case of the moment: She says the killer is vaccines a gang of teenage girls dressing as boys. But while Pat and Jeff encourage her to chase the lead, fellow reporter Neil (Ashley Thomas) has his doubts both about the informant Yvonne spoke to, and about the new journalist herself, whose qualifications as long as her arm seem too good to be true.

One thing The Story does very well is balance its racial politics - taking in both the wider tensions and violence, and the experience particularly of female black journalists trying to make a career - with the thriller that's built around it, and the growing suspicion that the real sociopath might be right in the middle of the story. Dyer's production makes particularly good use of Lucie Pankhurst's movement direction of the ensemble to build this frantic energy.

Where the thriller element is weaker is in leaving the reveal too late, so it's become pretty clear what the twist is going to be long before the plot gets there. But I did like how even-handed Scott Wilson is with her characters, and even in a play largely about the experience of black women, it's left to the black male to worry about the impact the story they're pushing will have on young black girls, who might have to get used to the sort of casual profiling and violence boys like Neil grew up with.

As Pat, Toussaint's scenery-chewing performance is visible from space but always watchable, so there's even an element of high camp to the evening. Despite the main plot trying to hold on to its reveal longer than really works the play doesn't overstay its welcome, and Scott Wilson is very good at finding the right moment to defuse the tension with humour. Although I do wonder how the first read-through went when this particular cast got to the running joke about Letitia being the most basic name imaginable for a young black woman.

The Story by Tracey Scott Wilson is booking until the 24th of October at the National Theatre's Olivier.

Running time: 2 hours 25 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Feruza Afewerki.