Big White Fog

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

Our Review:

18 May 2007

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 he...

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Latest User Review

rds - 8 June 2007:

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!...

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