Theatre review: Fairview

Jackie Sibblies Drury’s dark comedy about cultural appropriation Fairview begins as That American Play Where An Extended Family Gets Together After A Long Time, Preferably At Thanksgiving But That’s Optional, and let’s face it that was probably enough to win it the Pulitzer on its own. The play ends up divided into three distinct sections plus a powerful postscript, but to begin with Nadia Latif’s widescreen production is practically a sitcom as an African-American family prepares a meal: Beverly (Nicola Hughes) is stressing about getting everything just right for her mother’s birthday dinner; her husband Dayton (Rhashan Stone) is much more relaxed – a bit too relaxed as far as she’s concerned, but he has helped organise more of the cooking than she realised, and he helps her calm down a bit by dancing to their favourite songs. When her sister Jasmine (Naana Agyei-Ampadu) arrives she’s sassy and combative and manages to get the guest of honour to lock herself in the bathroom, but she does have a soft spot for Beverly and Dayton’s tomboyish daughter Keisha (Donna Banya.)

For the first half-hour there’s witty one-liners, things getting hidden behind sofa cushions and a hint of a heartwarming drama beneath the comedy, until a crisis point in the story is reached and the curtains are drawn over the action. From the next paragraph on, major SPOILER WARNING for anyone who doesn’t want to know the play’s twists.

If Tom Scutt’s letterbox set has made this look like a movie, and the play itself has seemed like a decent but somewhat clichéd African-American comedy drama, that’s because this is exactly what it’s revealed to be when we go back to the start, the action replaying silently as we get a new soundtrack of four white housemates (David Dawson, Julie Dray, Matthew Needham and Esther Smith) chatting over the action while they watch the film on TV*. For most of this second act they don’t even seem to be watching it properly, instead having a trite conversation about “what race would you be if you had to swap,” and only actually commenting on the film once it catches up with where we last left off. Eventually the four decide to enter the action themselves, warping the action into their own idea of what “black culture” is.

Even on a purely technical side there’s a lot to admire about Fairview: The second act, in which an almost entirely unrelated commentary plays over the action, has many moments where the audio and visuals appear to sync up to comic effect, and the precision needed from both Sibblies Drury’s writing and the production and cast to make that work is obvious. For a play that makes its points about cultural appropriation with deliberately broad strokes there’s a pleasing subtlety as well – witness the completely sensible clothes on the black characters as compared to the way the white ones think they should dress to fit in. Scutt’s costumes complement the way the play contrasts the affectionate self-mockery of black culture and stereotypes in the movie-within-a-play, with the minstrel show it descends into when viewed through the prism of the white characters.

Like many high-concept plays, Fairview suffers at times from the novelty of each twist wearing off, and after making its point cleverly for most of its running time the ending does err on the side of labouring the point. But for the most part Sibblies Drury’s writing maintains the wit and originality required to keep the energy levels up, and Latif’s production similarly piles on the absurdity like the giant slices of watermelon that get piled onto the table (a fruit whose racial connotations used to be mainly known in the US, but with recent election results showing the UK openly embracing racism as a national characteristic has a particular point of reference here too.) Like many bold experiments with structure the play is imperfect, but it’s for the most part both effective and brutally entertaining (and both Needham and Dawson have clearly found the looks that work for them.)

Fairview by Jackie Sibblies Drury is booking until the 23rd of January at the Young Vic.

Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.

*I bloody well hope it’s meant to be on TV and that they’re not talking non-stop in a cinema, I know white people have done some bad things historically but you’ve got to draw the line somewhere #SpecialHell