Performed at the Tower Theatre, June 27th 2019
Disclosure: I have been involved with the Tower Theatre since 2016 and am personally acquainted with some of the crew.
First performed in 2004 at the National Theatre in London, Kwame Kwei-Armah’s powerful drama of black identity, forgotten history, and divided loyalties has had a homecoming of sorts in being newly staged by the Tower Theatre in Stoke Newington. Reborn within Hackney borough, the beating heart of one of London’s most thriving minority communities, proceedings are immediately given a striking metafictional edge. Reborn within Hackney borough, the beating heart of one of London’s most thriving minority communities, proceedings are immediately given a striking metafictional edge, only strengthened by the significance of a restaging of such an unapologetically black play in 2019, in the throes of a new wave of sustained civil rights activism throughout the African diaspora. There is, after all, really no such thing as apolitical art.
Fix Up sees its protagonist Brother Kiyi (Richard Bobb-Semple, making his Tower Theatre debut) struggling to keep his titular bookshop, devoted to all manner of black biographical history, from closing down for want of customers. Even whilst his adopted son of sorts, the endearingly hapless Carl (Isiah Bobb-Semple), brings in boxes of new books, it seems that their community is more interested in chasing popular trends and fitting into a predominantly white society than in really connecting with their own uniquely black history and culture. Then, one day, Jasmine Rachelle’s Alice, a young mixed-race woman caught in the midst of both worlds and struggling to find her own meaningful identity, visits the shop, forcing a devastating reckoning with a dark and troubled past as personal as it is political.
Richard Bobb-Semple as Brother Kiyi. Credit: David Sprecher
Kwei-Armah’s writing has a wonderful strength and dramatic power, his dialogue crackling with the energy and eloquence of lyrical, rapid-fire patois, and given a sharp edge by (viewer be warned) unabashed deployment of the most explicit reclaimed racial term. His writing is brought to life by a hugely talented cast of actors, chief among them Rachelle and the elder Bobb-Semple. Both give moving, powerhouse performances, showing huge range and ability, and doing much to sell the play’s moments of genuinely emotionally devastating impact.
Isiah Bobb-Semple is a pleasure as the complicated Carl, the young man on a journey to articulate and come to terms with personal and political history, with Isiah moving deftly from the vivacious, youthful energy of his affected happy-go-lucky demeanour to the much more sombre notes of a grim past Carl still struggles with, and making it all believable as he goes. Meanwhile, Valerie Paul’s seemingly larger-than-life, no-nonsense Norma has an infectious energy and boldness about her, deftly commanding every scene she’s in, and Kieron Mieres skilfully rounds off the cast with an enjoyable, confident take on the hypocritical Kwesi, the shop’s wannabe Malcolm X in-residence, suspiciously more interested in capitalism than radicalism. All the cast pull off the work’s variety of complex, deeply flawed characters with aplomb and, in all the best moments of powerful human drama and tragedy, are wonderful to watch.
Supporting the cast is the stand-out work of the creative team, chief amongst them Holly Spice, whose ingenious set design frames the dilapidated Fix Up bookshop as a microcosmic distillation of the running theme of the foundation of black historical knowledge itself withering away and languishing in distinctly outmoded ‘uncool’ surroundings, whilst the faces of great black thinkers look on from their portraits in the background, their legacies of thought and action haunting the present of black life.
The spectre of black history haunts the present. Credit: David Sprecher
Phillip Ley’s sound design together with Sarah Assaf’s musical arrangement compliments this visual storytelling wonderfully, with a soundscape evocative of neglected black history that centres Marcus Garvey’s surviving words of righteous anger and indignation as they repeatedly puncture through the listless mundanity of the day-to-day, demanding an audience that will listen and take notice. Nick Insley’s lighting lends a beautifully solemn, portrait-like pathos to some moving, emotive monologues from the leads and heightens all the most shocking moments. Kwei-Armah’s lyrical patois, meanwhile, is brought out nicely by dialect coach Peta Barker.
Although events do build to a compelling, energetic and emotionally devastating finale in the second half, this leaves the first half, by comparison, seeming slowed down and slightly lacking in the same energy and momentum, with some of the longer pauses unfortunately suggesting delayed cues rather than dramatic effect, though this can easily be remedied in the coming performances. Nevertheless, director Landé Belo, in her Tower Theatre directorial debut, has accomplished quite a feat of storytelling, bringing a clear and confident vision to the text and creating work which is a richly thought-provoking and powerful pleasure to watch.
Isiah Bobb-Semple as Carl and Valerie Paul as Nora. Credit: David Sprecher
A final thought: doubtless, in our modern age, it seems that there will be some who are compelled to cynically label the work as a “black play”, and to superficially declare it as being about “black issues”, as though “blackness” is something to be relegated, resented and shunned, much like “women’s issues” is so often nastily deployed; but this amateurish view by a (likely) white commentariat contingent should be warned that they devalue work like Fix Up at everybody’s peril, including their own.
Of course, a term like “black issues” invites a problematic, reductive aspect; it is manifestly absurd to suggest a single, universal “black experience” or any one set of “black issues” (certainly, the play’s collection of characters are not an abstract monolith of rhetorical blackness, but complex, flawed human beings in conflict with one another) and there is a universality to the plea to remember and respect shared history and to find belonging and acceptance that will resonate with every viewer, irrespective of race - but this should surely not require downplaying or dismissing the blackness of the messengers, or the significance of their uniquely black experiences in shaping the message they deliver to us all: that our shared history is important, and worthy of attention, preservation and celebration of its moments of triumph. To merely dismiss it as a “black play” and its themes as “black issues” whilst our libraries and high street book shops close down by the day under austerity, and our centres of cultural and social history and knowledge vanish from our lives whilst we look away, distracted by trends on our social media feeds, is insanity.
Nevertheless, Belo’s work is a timely, accomplished reminder that perhaps, whether black or white, we should all put our phones away and make the time to stop by our local Fix Up.
Isiah Bobb-Temple as Carl and Jasmine Rachelle as Alice. Credit: David Sprecher
