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Nicholas de Jongh's rating
, The hammer blow of fate
By
Nicholas de Jongh
11 Mar 2008
I was moved and gripped by Debbie Tucker Green's 50-minute dramatic poem. It evokes an average working day in the life of a black West Indian family and then shatters the mood when the police arrive with news that the teenage son has been stabbed to death.
I did not, though, achieve strong emotional involvement with Random until I had read the text, a couple of hours after I had watched Nadine Marshall's virtuoso solo performance.
I found the way Miss Marshall delivered the text of Tucker Green's lyrically compressed, sometimes witty patois, too often unintelligible.
Moreover, Sacha Wares's misguided without-decor production has ideas beneath its station. It plays downstairs on the Court's main stage when it cries out to be staged in the intimacy of the Court's Upstairs studio space.
Random would work to strongest effect as a piece for radio. The text, set out as though it were free verse, is channelled through four family voices. Sharp mother, sleepy, insipid father and doomed son, with the sardonically amusing sister predominant, deliver their stream-ofconsciousness speeches direct to the audience.
It's a world of teenage mobiles, rushed breakfasts of burned porridge with Walker's crisps to fill the gap. The hammer blow of fate falls with chilling force: policemen in heavy boots invade the front room, the sister gazes at her brother's ruined body, its deathly stab wound almost invisible. A make-shift shrine appears but murder witnesses are struck by fearful muteness.
There's a vivid immediacy about Tucker Green's diction, its terse avoidance of high emotion faintly reminiscent of Garcia Lorca, that master of peasant tragedy, who in his plays and poetry described how death swooped out of the blue.
Miss Ware's decision to allow Miss Marshall to take all roles may emphasise the actress's versatility and ability to shift emotional gears in a trice, but it makes the event more theatrical than dramatic.
If director and actress worked to make the text more accessible to a general audience, then Random would hit home much harder.
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Reader views (3)
This is a hugely powerful production and it is not getting the recognition it deserves. Across the board the 'old white men' critics are tending to nervously give the play a three star pat on the back without awarding it the critical applause it warrants. One assumes the dialogue sailed over their heads but they could not fail to notice the audience's audible appreciation. Loathe to dismiss it, they are somewhat brushing it aside with a "well done that was nice".
- Maria Hodson, London, 13/03/2008 14:40
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I didn't know what to expect but I was totally blown away by Nadine Marshall's performance. I think you either get it or you don't and your critic definitely didn't!
- Michelle, London, UK, 11/03/2008 17:04
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I feel that the critics comment are more a reflection on the age and stuffiness of the critic rather than a good critique of the production. I thought the play was incredibly moving and you could literally feel the vast majority of the audience go on every step of the characters journey with them. Nadine Marshall is incredible and to add things to the production would only take away from the purity of the words and performance. I also believe that the social context of the play only grows with the fact that it is played downstairs. A bold statement by the royal court, unashamed to put it on in the bigger theatre and allow larger audiences to see something which they believe should be seen. Something which maybe other theatres should think about when programming. Certainly the most captivating thing I have seen in a very long time and a very sad state of affairs if this play is not given the recognition it deserves.
- Mark Everett, London, UK, 11/03/2008 12:18
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