This drama takes place in a state-of-the-art kitchen that, as one half of its Trinidadian yuppie couple says, has everything but food.
Hugh (Kevin N Golding) and Jean (Martina Laird) are too high-powered to cook in Mustapha Matura’s sleek 1982 exploration of Caribbean society through the prism of an upwardly mobile marriage. She is launching a cigarette advertising campaign; he is commodifying clean water to sell back to the island.
For a while, they waft through director Kalungi Ssebandeke’s revival of Matura’s play about progress and postcolonial identity like shiny representatives of a new Caribbean, living in a state of cultural amnesia.
The messy past is dragged into their pristine kitchen when Hugh hires Elsa (Bethan Mary-James) as their cook. She makes traditional food and, with every bite of her dishes, Hugh slowly remembers what the island is forgetting.
There is nimble, sparky humour and the charming cast capture Matura’s subtly satirical inflections, although the pace is slower than it should be. The opening vein of social satire develops into something darker as Elsa becomes a bigger force in the couple’s lives, but she is rather bluntly drawn as a representation of the old world (barefoot in contrast to Jean’s power dresses and Hugh’s suit).
We see and smell some of the delights she rustles up, from chip chip soup to soursop juice and swordfish dishes, and that sensory feast triggers something within the audience, too.
The play is made up of chats, before and after the clinching of business deals. “This country’s a mess,” says Hugh, intent on modernising it, but he goes on a journey that Jean resists. The plot turns on his inner transformation although there is a late, melodramatic story involving Jean’s cigarette campaign which is more functional.
What trumps it is the atmosphere and surreal interludes brought to life by Ali Hunter’s lighting and José Puello’s sound designs. In these moments the old Trinidad enters the new to reveal two worlds rubbing against each other: one full of clean surfaces, looking to a hi-tech future; the other with elemental drum beats, Shango and the pain of colonial enslavement.
At the Orange Tree theatre, London, until 11 November
