There was little surprise when Jeremy O. Harris’s 2018 work Slave Play transferred to Broadway less than a year after its premiere. There had been genuine clamour to see its first performances at the 198-seat New York Theatre Workshop, which critics had described as “willfully provocative, gaudily transgressive and altogether staggering” and “wildly imaginative”. The show’s run was extended and tickets for all performances sold out.
Not long after, when it opened on Broadway for a 17-week limited run, the reviews continued to be as intriguing as the show’s premise: Slave Play about three interracial couples who go to antebellum (pre-Civil War era) sex therapy (costumes included) when the black partner stops being attracted to the white partner. Their conversations touch on everything from desire, power, trauma and academic rigour – and the result is a transgressive, thoroughly exciting piece.
