(string music playing)
- Hello, I'm Winsome Pinnock and I'm a playwright.
- And I'm Ola Animashawun
and I'm a dramaturg
and an Associate at the National Theatre.
(music continues to play)
- Every Friday throughout Black History Month,
we're going to be talking about
our favourite plays from the Black Plays Archive.
- We're going to be talking about a whole
host of plays.
From the acclaimed classics,
right through to some hidden gems.
(string music continues)
- This week, I'd like to share with you
“Barber Shop Chronicles” by Inua Ellams.
An intimate and tender exploration of black masculinity.
- I don't look the part.
- What's the part?
- A black man.
(audience laughing)
- That's it?
- A strong black man.
(laughing)
- You are overqualified.
(continues laughing)
Why don't you think you'll get it?
- I don't fit their idea of strong black masculinity.
- What's your idea of it?
- I dunno.
(laughing)
- There's your problem.
- I love the idea also of, grooming.
Of people looking good, of style.
If people are kind of marginalised
or discriminated against
one of the things they have control over
is their physical body.
The way it appears,
often when you see spaces,
male spaces on stage,
there is violence.
There is aggression
because that's inherently theatrical.
And what I really,
really love and remember about this play
is the way that it
deals with masculinity
and black masculinity,
because it's really about
tenderness
and intimacy
between men,
the potential of men
to care for each other.
This act of grooming in the barbershop,
which is an intimate space
and really a mostly male space.
- I mean, it's a brilliant play.
It's a brilliant idea based in
an environment where people
naturally tell stories.
- It showed the way in which
a play has this impact,
that isn't just in the theatre.
It was just fun to see the actors enjoying
performing the play.
- So much music in that play isn't there.
And lots of dance.
And then lots of laughter both amongst the characters,
as much as there are on the stage.
I think it's a great choice.
(Soft music playing)
This week, I've chosen "Chewing Gum Dreams"
by Michaela Coel,
her explosive debut from 2013.
- He says,
there's cracks in the floor
and I should aim higher before
I find myself stuck in them.
Cracks in the floor.
I tell 'em them cracks were made for me.
And for my mum.
And her mum.
And relaxing into them is what we do best.
I, I ain't smart enough to be someone
I'm just smart enough to know I'm no one.
I got nothing,
So I can't get nothing.
I don't even think I want anything apart
from what new trainers and longer hair.
(audience laughs)
I can,
I can see there's a difference between us,
but I can't figure out what it is
or where, or when it started.
- I think what the play does so brilliantly
is announce Michaela Coel to the world.
And I think she has gone on
to change the course of
our understanding of drama
or how stories are told and that
the irreverence, the energy, the wit, the humour,
and yet her forensic understanding
of the human condition.
It's so brilliant
and quite extraordinary.
What Michaela does in that play is,
is lay bare the landscape of what it was like
in the early noughties to be at school.
And it's so colourful.
It is so rich,
but it's also so truthful.
And she has a brilliant line.
She gets a white boyfriend and he's very ambitious,
he wants to go to a university
and you know,
you've got to aim for the stars
before you get sucked down
into the cracks.
It's a fantastic
moment, I think in the play
that talks about aspiration.
But also how you see the world
- Yeah.
- and how,
and what is reflected back to you often, in the world.
- And I suppose the
the significance of this as well,
and of the archive is the traces
you leave for the future.
Because when you, for instance,
research the history of black Londoners, for example,
or black people in Britain,
the archives are silent
because those histories are
willfully neglected or erased.
So these plays give you some indication
of what the culture
was like, how people lived.
- Yeah. They're like little time capsules aren't they
- That's right
- Or documents
(music continues)
The Black Plays Archive is an online catalogue
of every first professional production
of African, Caribbean, and black British plays in the UK.
- If you'd like to have a browse yourself,
and discover all the incredible plays
written by black playwrights,
go to blackplaysarchive.org.uk.
- [Ola] On the explore page,
you can search the archive
by different criteria,
including date of production,
name of the playwright or name of the play.
- We hope that you'll join us next week when we'll be
discussing two new plays.