Timely debut on grief and grievances
Nine Night
National’s Dorfman Theatre
An adieu to the Windrush generation and a reflection on the emotional legacy of their migration to the UK, Nine Night couldn’t be timelier, given the political crisis of the past few weeks.
It marks an assured playwriting debut for actress Natasha Gordon that would be even more assured had she pushed past 100 minutes: we’re just tucking into big themes of abandonment, dispossession and belonging when it all comes to a sudden, supernatural-ish end.
The “nine-night” is a Caribbean wake tradition entailing a protracted celebration of the departed, culminating in a gathering on the ninth night when the spirit of the deceased is believed by some to depart. One such wake is conducted here for muchloved Gloria – who succumbs to cancer (unseen) upstairs, while her next of kin fuss about in her kitchen.
Assisted by director Roy Alexander Weise’s accomplished, authenticfeeling production, Gordon catches well that aching time around the death of a loved one when those affected can’t give way to grief: sadness bubbles away and tempers fray.
We could do with a greater sense of the local community; this is a family-only affair. Still, what a family: imposing herself with a comic grandeur that demands its own spinoff sitcom is Gloria’s septuagenarian, sixth-sense-possessing cousin Maggie. As played by Cecilia Noble, she’s a joy to watch, sitting clucking quiet disapproval with stolid regality. On learning that Gloria’s granddaughter Anita (Rebekah Murrell) is still breastfeeding her baby at nine months, she drily observes: “Poor ting must be longing fi a piece of chicken.”
Warm-hearted humour proves Gordon’s forte but it’s not delivered at the expense of tough, familial truth. Gloria’s dutiful elder daughter Lorraine (Franc Ashman) skirmishes with her brusque brother Robert (Oliver Alvinwilson). The latter is indifferent to his white, uptight wife Sophie (Hattie Ladbury), in turn estranged from her racist mother. The belated arrival of half-sister Trudy (Michelle Greenidge), the daughter Gloria left behind when emigrating, unleashes a welter of long-held resentments and prompts an outburst about England not wanting any of them.
A few months ago that might have sounded melodramatic; right now, it carries a chilling, shaming force.
Until May 26. Tickets: 020 7452 3000; nationaltheatre.org.uk