Theatre review:Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White

Alice Childress' 1966 play about segregation Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White is set in South Carolina in 1918, and the fact that it's the final year of the First World War is a constant underlying theme: Black soldiers like Lula's (Diveen Henry) adopted son Nelson (Patrick Martins) and sailors like Mattie's (Bethan Mary-James) husband are fighting the same as white Americans and risking their lives the same, but in an upcoming celebration Nelson will, like the rest of the black troops, have to add himself to the end of the parade uninvited; and when the war ends, however much they try to convince themselves otherwise, they know their contribution won't be recognised by allowing them into the spaces they're currently forbidden from. But if Lula and Mattie think they've seen it all, their new neighbour will confront them with one more taboo.

Theatre review: Trouble in Mind

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: I seem to be having a run of shows I could only fit in before they officially open to the press; this was the penultimate preview.

A play that made me spend a lot of the evening wondering if I'd misread how old it was, Alice Childress' Trouble in Mind was first staged off-Broadway in 1955; which makes it ahead of its time, to say the very least. Wiletta Mayer (Tanya Moodie) has made a successful career as an actress, admittedly mostly in all-black revues and a succession of bit-part "mammy" roles on screen. Now she's preparing to go back to Broadway for a ground-breaking new drama that will make a powerful statement about racism, and mobilise its comfortable white audience into empathy. It's just a shame that the play-within-a-play, written and directed by white men, is terrible, and full of as many offensive stereotypes as any number of overtly racist works. But as she tells newcomer John (Daniel Adeosun) when rehearsals begin, there's a certain repertoire of polite nods, smiles and giggles black actors have to offer up to white creatives if they're going to feel comfortable around them and continue giving them work.