The Women of Llanrumney review – blistering dissection of slavery as the sugar crop fails

Seems to contain two plays at the same time … l to r, Keziah Joseph (Cerys), Nia Roberts (Elizabeth) and Suzanne Packer (Annie) in The Women of Llanrumney. Photograph: Ana Pinto

The Women of Llanrumney is a blistering full-length debut play by Azuka Oforka. Conceptually dexterous and containing four astute and fearless performances, it marks Oforka as an urgent and important voice in Welsh theatre.

While the Llanrumney sugar estate in St Mary, Jamaica, was real, the narrative of Oforka’s historical play reimagines it under the ownership of the unwed and independent Elizabeth Morgan (Nia Roberts). Housekeeper Annie and her pregnant daughter Cerys (Suzanne Packer and Keziah Joseph) are enslaved in her service, but when the sugar crop begins to fail safety becomes brutally conditional for all three.