It’s a family affair
Photo: Alex Brenner
Daniel Nelson
You know you’ll get strong meat when a Suzan-Lori Parks play is on the menu. The Book of Grace is no exception.
In 2002 she became the first African-American woman woman to receive a Pulitzer Prize for drama, for Topdog/Underdog, and director Femi Elufowoju jr describes the new play as a “companion piece”.
Don’t be misled by the gentleness of the word ‘companion’: this is a simmering, powerful three-hander in which a briefly reunited family’s tensions constantly threaten to erupt into violence.
Dad is an insecure, sexist, domineering, porn-watching US border guard, for whom the knife-edge creases in his uniform are part of his armour and his worldview, who has dug a menacing hole in his backyard, and who is obsessed with the Texas-Mexico border Wall that keeps out the aliens. His estranged son, ending 15 years of absence, has grown into a strapping, confused, frustrated, angry man who looks as likely to explode as the grenades in his luggage. Between them is Grace, searching for the good in everything and everyone: “You just gotta look for it.”
This being a Parks play, the small p politics of the family are reflected in the national politics of the United States. The aliens trying to breach the Wall must be kept out as firmly as the alien intruder threatening to re-enter the father’s life. The Man against whom his son rages is the personification of the authorities who are contemptuously playing with the lives of working people and is also his father; the son’s behaviour begins to look disturbingly like that of a mass killer. The mysterious backyard hole is the potentially violent counterpoint to the militaristic Wall.
As the audience member sitting next to me said at the end of the first half, “You know this isn’t going to end well.”
It doesn’t. It builds to a Grand Guignol climax as the sparks between the three protagonists – brought to life by high-voltage acting – finally trigger an explosion.
It’s a play about boundaries and extreme reactions, and whether small g grace can offer a chance to find a gentle solution.
Strong stuff. And afterwards it’s hard not to ponder the impact of a Trump second term.
Wow!
The Book of Grace, £12-£27, is at the Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin Street, E8 3DL, until 8 June. Info: https://www.arcolatheatre.com/whats-on/the-book-of-grace/