Intertwined with race, sexuality, and outrage, Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play aims to provoke London. While Harris’s little drama with Rishi Sunak ironically echoes the show’s advertising headline (“Is London Ready for Slave Play“), the production may not be as provocative as it claims to be.
To some extent, Slave Play innovatively attempts to explore the relationship between race and sexuality in a new light, beyond the mainstream theory of intersectionality. Instead, it examines this relationship through the lens of desire. As the title implies, it questions the legitimacy of a specific form of desire ignited through hatred, intimidation, and shame—through “being in a slave state.” Is it legitimate to enjoy your desire as the submissive, when the dominant person’s race has historically abused and exploited people of your race?
This question clearly resonates in the States, but it could also be universal. Unfortunately, rather than being genuinely provocative, Robert O’Hara’s direction steers the show in a more comedic and funny manner—even in the erotic scenes. The three couples, all with bed death problems, attend an “antebellum sexual performance therapy” session developed by two researchers, Teá (Chalia La Tour) and Patricia (Irene Sofia Lucio), who might have been a couple in the past.
The therapy involves a sex role-play set before the American Civil War, with the inclusion of N-word spoken flirtatiously. Kaneisha (Olivia Washington) dresses like a slave on a plantation, constantly shaking her bum at Jim (Kit Harington), who requires her to eat a “watermelon”—which turns out to be a cantaloupe. Alana (Annie McNamara) cosplays a southern, extravagant mistress who uses a dildo to fuck her Black steward, Philip (Aaron Heffernan), while Dustin, a white servant, makes his Black manager, Gary (Fisayo Akinade), come.
The overall acting is a bit hammed, rich in strong, exaggerated movements and fighting scenes choreographed by Jade Hackett. In contrast, Harington’s acting exemplifies some self-containment and restraint. In the second act where the discursive part of the therapy begins, Jim writes a letter to his “queen” Kaneisha, illustrating a typical white, straight, heterosexual male ego who only talks but does not listen. Harington’s crystal-like begging tone with his slightly awkward southern accent adds a layer of fragile sincerity, feeling more complex and multilayered.
Clint Ramos’s design of a mirrored back wall transforms into Jim and Kaneisha’s bedroom with six dimensions of mirrors. This seems to sparkle the show’s seeing-seen relationship both onstage and in the auditorium, but such a set with a luxurious vibe easily reminds me of a sex party in a love hotel with the couple playing S&M games. Though Jiyoun Chang’s lighting and Lindsay Jones’s soundscape attempt to create a horrendous atmosphere, it slips away smoothly.
With the programme’s cover explicitly symbolising vagina, Slave Play feels bizarrely disconnected from female desire — not because it is written and directed by men, but because there is a gap between its radical claim and its actual theatrical presentation.
