One of Roy Williams’ strengths as a
playwright is his skill at engaging with social issues without letting
the thematic tail wag the dog of character-based drama. However, with
Angel House – the latest touring
production by the black British initiative Eclipse Theatre, run by a
consortium of regional venues – it can be hard to tell where the dog
ends and the tail begins. That, too, could be a strength, but with such
a diffuse narrative as this it feels further unfocused. I count six or
seven discrete but interwoven strands of plot among the ten characters
and three generations in Williams’ play who live or have lived in the
titular block of flats on an estate about to be partly demolished,
partly profitably refurbished.
Listing the topics covered (crack dealing and consumption, long-held
parentage secret, adolescent sexuality etc. etc.) gives the misleading
impression that this is an “it’s grim up on the 15th floor” retread.
Williams writes about the people, not the depredations. Nor is he
saying that drugs, violence and domestic fragmentation would not exist
if there were a greater supply of decent, affordable social housing,
but he is acknowledging that black Britons in particular have had half
a century of raw deals in this respect, going back to the days of “No
blacks, no Irish, no dogs”.
Paulette Randall’s production is driven by a brace of dependably strong
productions from Claire Benedict as the ageing Jean, disappointed in
different ways by both her sons, and Mark Monero as the younger of
those two, the feckless drug-dealer Frank. They are joined by comedian
Richard Blackwood, who shows surprising discipline and commitment in
the role of property-developer elder brother Stephen. But as our
attention ping-pongs from sibling rivalry to their two absent fathers
to Frank’s imminent attack by his drug suppliers to his son Adam’s
coming out to… and so on, we end up with a portmanteau play, a
notoriously difficult approach to bring off in any medium, even before
Williams spends virtually the entire second act having raw truths and
reconciliations traded between characters in almost every available
permutation.
Written for the Financial
Times.