Outside, race riots tear across the neighbourhood after a Black teenager is arrested and ends up in a coma through police violence. Inside, three men are fighting their own father-son battles.
Daniel J Carver’s potent and promising drama takes place in a Jamaican takeaway, where the men wait for the greater disturbance to subside on the street, and it explores what it is to be a Black British man across three generations: Jamaican-born grandfather Sydney (Everal A Walsh), father Malcolm (Carver) and son Luther (Jayden Hanley).
The heat of family fracture and relationships between these men are mercilessly unpicked but it takes a little while to warm up. Directed by Jay Zorenti-Nakhid, there is too much ideological debating early on, with characters taking positions on how to fight for change, whether violence is ever justified, negotiating the trauma of racism and ways to be a man.
The script switches gears, though, and enters nuanced emotional territory. Generational clash is organically evoked though the family-run takeaway: Malcolm wants to pull it into the 21st century with delivery services and other money-making ventures while Sydney insists on keeping it old school, as a place where people mingle, and Luther chips in with gen Z ideas on vegan options.
There is occasional comic repartee between grandson and grandfather, who have a lovely, endearing chemistry, the older man closer to and more accepting of Luther, or so it seems. These lighter moments are charming, and you wish for a few more of them amid the bleakness. But this is a play with few soft edges and gives way to a darkness that feels both hard-hitting and authentic in its points of pain.
It refuses to sugar-coat the retooled racism felt down the generations and the way it affects Black masculinity. Sydney’s life has been marked by overt abuse and has left its imprint on his family (it brings one of the main revelations of the plot too). Malcolm has turned to violence, eaten up by the system’s raging injustices. There is a sense of hope in Luther, a gentle fashion student who wants to go his own way.
Malcolm is the central provocateur and pained character, explosive in his anger and full of bitterness towards his father for his absence in childhood, as well as rage at his son for not matching up to his traditional idea of masculinity. Remarkably, we still feel for him, just as we do the other two men. This is partly down to Carver’s writing, but also the outstanding performances across the board; each takes us on their own difficult journey.
They speak in their own generational and cultural patois too, and there are some soaring scenes, such as a confrontation between father and son which brings another revelation around sexuality.
It is after-hours in the takeaway so there is no food and the men have little to do other than rage at each other. Still, Amanda Mascarenhas’s stage design is atmospheric, with a menu on the wall that features salt-fish and jerk chicken alongside carrot cake.
There is melodrama at the end, although no real catharsis. Life goes on with much unsaid, but at least these men are unburdened, for tonight.
