Statement of Regret

Synopsis

Kwaku Mackenzie, founder of a Black policy think tank, hits the bottle after his father’s death. As media interest in the once dynamic Institute fades, his team grows fractious and then, disastrously, he favours a young Oxford scholar over his own devastated son. When, in a vain attempt to regain influence, he publicly champions divisions within the Black community, the consequences are shattering.

Our Review:

15 November 2007

When Kwaku Mackenzie, the head of a black think-tank, goes on live television and drunkenly declares that it’s high time black people were more racist, all hell breaks out back at the office.

Statement of Regret - Kwame Kwei-Armah’s new play in the Cottesloe, his third for the National about tensions and identity crises in the British Afro-Caribbean community - is a fascinating document based on current thinking about “post-traumatic slave syndrome” and reparations for past wrong-doing. As drama, though, it leaves quite a bit to be desired.

The novelty of seeing an office play populated by black men in suits was only matched by the novelty of spotting a similar constituency in the first night audience. Kwei-Armah is obviously voicing some very potent misgivings about new black politics. And the core is Kwaku’s insistence on creating further divisions between the West Indian and African immigrant factions.

The same theme underpins [Roy Willia...

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