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Synopsis Big White Fog is set in Chicago between 1922 and 1933 and follows the journey of members of the Mason family and the pursuit of their own ideological beliefs, as they steer a course through post WW1 racism and the Great Depression. Supported by wife Ella, Vic's loyalty is to Marcus Garvey's separatist Back to Africa campaign, while his brother-in-law Dan is committed to the American Dream, believing that the black community European premiere
Pioneering African-American playwright Theodore Ward’s 1937 political melodrama Big White Fog opened at the Almeida last week (17 May 2007, previews from 11 May) with critics commending its performers while questioning its “creakily” written occasionally “didactic” script.
The play is set in Chicago’s South Side during the 1920s and 1930s and was first produced in New York by Ward’s Negro Playwrights’ Company. Almeida artistic director Michael Attenborough directs an emsemble cast including Danny Sapani, Jenny Jules, Tony Armatrading, Novello Nelson, Clint Dyer, Tunji Kasim, Guga Mbatha-Raw and Lenora Crichlow in what is the first-ever European production.
Big White Fog sees Labourer Victor Mason (Sapani) fighting to keep his family together as his devotion to Marcus Garvey’s separatist Back to Africa movement clashes with the family’s pursuit of the American Dream and his salesman brother-in-law, Daniel (Armatrading), advocates beating the white system by joining it.
Critics were pleased to see more than 20 of “the best of British black actors” in action even if, as a result, some of the characters remained “sketchy”.
Michael Coveney for Whatsonstage.com (four stars) – “A political melodrama, a missing document in the black stage history of America, an ensemble acting opportunity for the best of British black actors: Michael Attenborough’s superb production of Theodore Ward’s 1937 play Big White Fog is a major event. Admittedly the play, set in Chicago’s South Side in the 1920s and moving rapidly into the Depression years in the last act, is creakily written and comes across as a combination between Clifford Odets on a bad day and an old-style Unity Theatre Marxist-Leninist tract. But there is real vigour in the performance, and a lot of more than just interesting historical information in the argument. Sapani’s magnificent Victor maintains a brutish integrity throughout, while Armatrading’s Daniel enjoys the good life and a convincing optimism until the bad times engulf the community in a tidal rush.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian (four stars) – “It's the acting that impresses me most about this revival of Theodore Ward's 1937 play. It confirms what the work at the Tricycle and Young Vic has already shown: we have a wide range of black actors capable of doing justice to this kind of American realistic drama. In truth, the performances sometimes camouflage the flaws in the writing. What comes across in Michael Attenborough's fine production is the vigorous intensity of South Side family life. It may not be a flawless play, but it offers an exact record of its times and reminds us of the large pool of black acting talent in this country.”
Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail (three stars) – “Big White Fog is not a great play. It has such a large cast that some of the 20 characters inevitably feel a bit sketchy. The actors do their best with the creaky material. At half time, I felt a little bit preached at and could quite well understand how this worthy but didactic play had not previously been performed in Europe.”
Nicholas de Jongh in the Evening Standard (four stars) – “I doubt if there exists any more enthralling or important play about the struggle of blacks to survive in pre-Second World War America than Big White Fog. It is that rare dramatic thing: a drama which extends one's awareness of life, resounding with justified anger and passion. No one who wishes to understand the struggle for survival faced by black Americans in the racist Twenties and Depression Years will care to miss it. Michael Attenborough's heartfelt but sometimes too statuesque production marks the re-emergence of Theodore Ward, a black socialist dramatist, whose plays are unknown here and neglected in America, where his career was aborted by McCarthyite black-listing. Ward and his theatrical canon may now be rescued from the doldrums.”
Rhoda Koenig in the Independent (four stars) – “Among the large and splendid cast, several are particularly notable – Jenny Jules as Ella, moving from careful repression to desperate appeasement to white-hot rage to stony disdain; Clint Dyer's sweet-talking Uncle Percy, heartbreaking in his descent to bewildered alcoholism; Novella Nelson, a matriarch as grand as she is flawed; and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who is touching as the vulnerable Wanda. Compelling as history, the play is less satisfying as theatre. Ward takes up too many personal and political themes, and sometimes assembles them clumsily. Yet Big White Fog evokes nostalgia as well as pity. Here is a world in which children are respectful to elders, in which three generations of a family live in a large house, and in which a black man who disparages Jews is reproved by another for imitating the white man's prejudice. The production also suggests what is missing from our stages: where are the contemporary plays to show us such a full and passionate picture of black life?”
A political melodrama, a missing document in the black stage history of America, an ensemble acting opportunity for the best of British black actors: Michael Attenborough’s superb production of Theodore Ward’s 1937 play Big White Fog – never seen in Europe before – is a major event.
Admittedly the play, set in Chicago’s South Side in the 1920s and moving rapidly into the Depression years in the last act, is creakily written and comes across as a combination between Clifford Odets on a bad day and an old-style Unity Theatre Marxist-Leninist tract. But there is real vigour in the performance, and a lot of more than just interesting historical information in the argument.
The play was first produced in New York by the Negro Playwrights’ Company whose co-founders included Ward himself, Paul Robeson and the poet Langston Hughes. It is an obvious precursor of August Wilson’s Pennsylvania chronicles, with a central ideological rift between a heavily politicised labourer, Victor Mason (Danny Sapani), and his sharp-suited salesman brother-in-law, Daniel Rogers (Tony Armatrading), who advocates beating the white system by joining it.
Victor, on the other hand, is an officer in Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line movement, forging a link to the homeland in Africa with, they hope, wide-ranging agrarian reforms in the States. Victor’s children play a key role in the development of the argument: Lester (Tunji Kasim) wins a scholarship only to have it rescinded because of his colour; Wanda (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) earns much needed cash for the family as a secret prostitute with white clients, flaunting her status in a new seal skin coat.
One of Lester’s school friends, a nice, quiet Jewish boy called Nathan Piszer (Aaron Brown), points out that Garvey’s policies – the root of the Black Power movement in the 1960s – are a pipe-dream, arguing for assimilation, unity with the white majority on common ground. And after Victor himself is let down by his hero -- Garvey was accused of fraud in 1923 – you sense the play drifting away from its own initial radical convictions and settling for an alliance of black and white socialism.
That is the tableau at the end when, in 1932, the family is assailed by debt, plunged into abject poverty and invaded by the bailiffs. Resistance leads to a sudden escalation of violence and tragedy, all of it sardonically observed by Novella Nelson’s wise old grandmother and the increasingly desperate married sisters of Jenny Jules and Susan Salmon. In a stage full of excellent performances, Clint Dyer also stands out as hip dude of an uncle whose descent into helpless alcoholism seems symbolic of one strand of black political defeatism.
Attenborough’s production is handsomely designed by Jonathan Fensom: a large, comfortable living room with a practical staircase, stained glass windows, a rocking chair and that evocative precursor of the gramophone, a Victrola with a conical speaker. Sapani’s magnificent Victor maintains a brutish integrity throughout, while Armatrading’s Daniel enjoys the good life and a convincing optimism until the bad times engulf the community in a tidal rush.
The show is an eye-opener; and what a treat to see the Almeida stage crammed – as it so often has been -- with two dozen actors at the curtain call!
I clicked on the "Show Listing" for this play and was not at all surprised to see 5 stars for Readers Reviews, and then to see all the entries were 5 stars, a remarkable achievement. What a remarkable night at the theatre, truly memorable. The cast are uniformly terrific. From the very young upwards. If one were to describe each of the talented cast individually it would fill too much of this column. Suffice it to say there are very fine performances, but Jenny Jules is heartbreaking as the obdeient wife, finally broken by the hardship inflicted upon her by her principled husband, but what principles! I defy anyone not to be moved to tears by this production. Michael Attenborough has directed a fine ensemble in a magnificent staging by Jonathan Fensom, who manages to recreate the atmosphere of an uptown brownstone so vividly that I could almost feel the stupifying heat of summer, and the bone gnawing cold of winter as vividly as if I had been there. A triumph for the Almeida. It MUST get a transfer to the West End. Brilliant! - rds
08 Jun 07
To say that the Almeida has done nothing better is praise indeed. Quite why this play - which on the basis of this production is, in my book, a 20th century American classic - has taken 70 years to get here is beyond me. Michael Attenborough's production is faultless and I've hardy ever seen an ensemble that matches this one. For anyone passionate about theatre, missing this would be a tragedy. Magnificent! - Gareth James
24 May 07
I agree with everything Mr Coveney says about the production and the magnificent cast - I don't agree with him or one or two other critics about the piece being 'creaky'. i thought it was an excellent piece of story-telling written with great vigour and emotional honesty. It's a disgrace the play has never been seen here before. All power to the Almeida. - D. White
22 May 07
I agree with everything Mr Coveney says about the production and the magnificent cast - I don't agree with him or one or two other critics about the piece being 'creaky'. i thought it was an excellent piece of story-telling written with great vigour and emotional honesty. It's a disgrace the play has never been seen here before. All power to the Almeida. - D. White
22 May 07
Stunning. Powerful. And utterly moving. - Matt
18 May 07
I enjoyed this immensely. What a large and ambitious project, beautifully pulled off by a cast of stunning actors, so uniformly good that it's invidious to pick anyone out. Now let's see them all in plays that aren't necessarily written for black actors, and not only Shakespeare. - Matthew Lingens
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