RED VELVET (Guildford School of Acting)*****

 

By Aashiq

Link: https://gsauk.org/events/15601ATMPBSJPVHGDQLTKHTGJDDNPRJJP/book 

Available until: There is another performance on Thursday 18^th March at 7.30pm.

These actors are students? Seriously?

That’s my career done then. I can’t compete with this lot but as an audience member I will be in for serious treats in the future. These students are so talented and they perform this brilliant and very important play perfectly. (I’m not saying I’m not jealous, though.)

Red Velvet feels relevant to current times in so many ways. It is about a production of Othello at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, which I believe was on the same site as the current Royal Opera House, though (just this once), I’m very happy to be corrected. It’s 1833 and the title role is being played by Edmund Kean, but he collapses onstage and the company is faced with two choices – find another actor or let the theatre go dark (and we all know how horrible it is when theatres do that).

Another actor is found. He’s very experienced in playing the role, but when he walks into the room, there’s a shock in store. The actor is black… and the world is racist.

This play is written by Lolita Chakrabarti, who also wrote the brilliant Hymn, streamed recently from the Almeida Theatre. The events depicted in this play will feel shocking to many people in the 21^st century and that’s exactly the way it’s meant to feel. But perhaps the most shocking thing of all – something which I hope nobody will forget – is that we haven’t moved on from that as much as many people think. A black Othello is, rightly, almost a requirement now, but when it comes to other classical roles, there is often a feeling that they can’t be played by an actor who isn’t white.

I understand that some people want to do a historically accurate production and historically, a lot of characters would have been white. The occasional all-white production can be really important if it forces us to see the world as it was. But if race isn’t relevant to the story you’re telling, why make it relevant to the casting? Why would you say a person of colour can’t play that role when it’s going to make no difference to the story?

Red Velvet, which is a true story, teaches us the very important fact that for far too long, things were even worse. There was a time when it wasn’t considered appropriate even for Othello to be played by an actor who wasn’t white. We’ve come a long way and I’m glad, but there’s more work to do so let’s keep going. Socially, too, there’s still a long way to go.

GSA’s production of Red Velvet is a triumph. Director Nicholai La Barrie’s sensitive, honest production forces us to face every painful moment in the story. He doesn’t hide or try to gloss over anything in the text. There’s a feeling that not only has this play been well-rehearsed (though probably a lot of it was over Zoom because of a decision someone made to close all the universities, even though in my educational experience, there were actually quite a lot of prejudiced idiots I was more than happy to stay two metres away from at all times), it’s been well-discussed. The actors play their roles with deep understanding, commitment, and I think a very strong desire to do complete justice to the text, which they did.

Elliott Squire’s set is also used for Hamlet and Image of a Young Woman, but it looks different in this production, with no light around the two-storey little box things (which were used for powerful videos, designed by Shane Stewart) and stronger lighting from Johanna Town (unless that was me moving my laptop screen). The whole atmosphere is different and it’s such a brilliant play, the only other Shakespeare plays I thought about were Othello and King Lear and that’s only because the characters would keep mentioning them.

Tijan Sarr is incredible in the role of Ira Aldridge, a man with an incredible talent who has also suffered incredible pain. It’s a performance that stirs up your emotions for Ira as an individual and for the colossal unfairness he and others suffered, and still do. The play includes scenes from Othello and Tijan’s performance is so full of passion and pain and meaning, I just have to see him in the complete role some day or I don’t know what I’ll do. If you’re from the Globe or the Royal Shakespeare Company, I suggest you watch this right now (or maybe not right now, maybe tomorrow at 7.30 when there’s actually a performance on). If you’re not from the Globe or the Royal Shakespeare Company, watch it anyway.

The rest of the cast have a lot to live up to, but they smash it. Rebecca Morley is awe-inspiring as Ellen Tree and Ophelia. Ines Bally’s Betty Lovell is an adorable little gossip. Matt Logan is a kind, relaxed and open-minded Henry, while Matt Wake doesn’t try to pretend that his character Charles Kean isn’t a horrible, prejudiced idiot. His scenes are actually really powerful and I’m not just referring to the powerful urge I get to hit him over the head with something (the character, I mean. Matt is quite safe. Besides, I’m a total wimp about violence and anyone who dares to calls me limp-wristed is basically stating a fact so there’s really no need to worry).

Joseph Driver is incredible as Bernard, especially when he reads something aloud with the most tangible reluctance. Sophie George gives touching unconditional support as Ira’s girlfriend Margaret, Ryan Wiggins’ Pierre Laporte is painfully torn between what he wants and what has to happen, and Mari Ann Bull makes Halina into so much more than she at first appears. As servant Connie, the other BIPOC character, Tianna Arnold has a small but significant role to play.

Red Velvet is emotional and heartbreaking. But it isn’t just a story. It’s real.