Slave Play: How boycotts, walkouts and Rishi Sunak made this the hottest show in town

Is Broadway ready for Slave game?” request The New York Times before Jeremy O Harris’s taboo-breaking production opened in 2019. Its 17-week run, which starred Scarlett Johansson, Harry Styles and Rihanna, was so eagerly awaited that they later presented a second play: “Was Broadway ready for Slave game“The answer remains as divided today as the critics. Now, as Slave game makes its UK debut at the Noël Coward Theatre, as incendiary and controversial as ever, the question rings out: is London ready?

Not if the former prime minister’s reaction is anything to go by. The play, nominated for a record 12 Tony Awards in 2021, has already sparked widespread outrage in the UK. In February, Rishi Sunak condemned Harris’ decision to host all-black nights as “racist” and “divisive.” In doing so, he launched a buzzworthy press campaign around a play he hadn’t even seen. Granted, seeing it would probably only make him more angry.

Slave game tells the story of three interracial couples who hope to reinvigorate their sex lives by participating in “antebellum sex therapy” – a concept that roughly translates to plantation-era role-playing. Petticoats included. In one moment, Kaneisha (Olivia Washington) plays a black slave who wants the white “Massa” Jim (the first stage role of Game Of Thrones star Kit Harington since he played Henry V in 2022) to call her “Negress” while she cleans the floor.

It would be unfair to say more, but even a detailed account of the play’s two-hour plot would not prepare you for the shock of what unfolds on stage. The plot uses degrading images of black people, particularly black women, and makes for deeply uncomfortable viewing; it questions race, sexuality, and the psychological legacy of slavery. Much of the plot is deliberately geared toward laughter.

Written while Harris, 35, who is black and gay, was still a student at the Yale School of Drama, Slave game The show garnered a record 12 Tony Award nominations in 2021, but won none. When it premiered at the New York Theatre Workshop in 2018, a petition for its immediate closure, started by a black woman who described it as “one of the most disrespectful displays of anti-black sentiment” she had seen, garnered more than 6,000 signatures. The cast received death threats, and the hashtag #ShutDownSlavePlay was created. Its subsequent Broadway run was less marred by outrage, but still regularly sparked walkouts. Reviews were mostly glowing. (An HBO documentary about the fuss, directed by Harris, debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival last month.)

Some accused Harris of racism, others said the play discriminated against whites. Most troubling to the playwright himself were black audiences who suggested he had written it for a white audience. “It’s so weird to me,” he said. The Guardian In 2019, he wrote, “Because the first audience I wrote this book for was an audience of my classmates at Yale. And the people who were most upset at the time were white viewers.” He added, “I would say that right now, when so many Black artists are having opportunities for the first time, it can feel like we need to make Black art for all Black people.”

Slave game is a rarity in that it is actually as provocative as the headlines would have you believe. That the casting of Harington, a London TV star, is a mere footnote is testament to that. Whatever your feelings about Slave gameit’s true what the Los Angeles Times wrote: “No theatrical work in recent memory has had the same seismic impact.”

The furore only grew when it was announced that Harris would be bringing his tradition of “Black Out” nights to this side of the Atlantic, where black audiences are invited to experience the play “without the white gaze” for two performances. While legally no one can be prevented from attending, the move has been predictably controversial – with No 10 and beyond. Never mind that only 7% of Arts Council-funded theatre audiences were black in 2021-22 – or that similar initiatives to encourage more diverse theatre audiences have been taking place in London theatres for years. Harris had already launched the Black Out nights for Dadhis acclaimed play about a young black gay artist and an older white art collector, which came to the Almeida in 2022.

In response to Sunak’s finger-pointing, Harris wrote on X/Twitter: “There is literally a war going on… perhaps the deaths of thousands of Palestinian children should be more ‘concerning’ than a playwright trying to make the West End more inclusive for those not historically invited there.” In a similar push for inclusion, Slave game will put 30 tickets on sale at a free price every Wednesday.

Harris has been vocal about his desire to increase diversity in theater. In addition to discounted tickets and Black Out nights, his team has conducted targeted outreach, including spots on a popular hip-hop R&B radio station in the United States. In 2021, he withdrew Slave game from a Los Angeles theater in protest of the company’s lack of representation of female playwrights. He had previously said The Guardian“The challenges we set for ourselves are not box office or how much money we can make. It’s about how we can change the image of the next generation of theatergoers.” (While Slave game(The Broadway run did not recoup its $3.9 million investment (very few do); producers were pleased with its performance, noting that 100,000 people went to see it.)

Black Out parties don’t just encourage diversity. “Especially for a show like Slave game“In a film that bluntly addresses the lingering trauma of slavery on black Americans, being one of the few black people in the room can have a profoundly destabilizing effect on your experience,” critic Aisha Harris wrote in an editorial. The New York Times. In the same article, the play’s star, Joaquina Kalukango, added: “If you’re a black person coming in front of a mostly white audience, you never have the full freedom to hear every word. Instead, your experience is reduced to the experience of your white neighbor and how he receives it. What are they kidding?”

Harris, too, spoke of the joy of seeing “a room full of other black faces laughing at the same moments, having the same epiphanies, crying at the same moments and feeling the same anxieties.” Black audiences, however, have been similarly criticized for their portrayal of black sexuality. In a recent interview, the playwright said he had come to an understanding with his critics. “We have to recognize that it’s OK to say, ‘That’s not for me,’ without saying that it’s offensive and shouldn’t exist,” he said, adding that, as always, making the audience feel comfortable is the last thing on his mind.

All this to say then that Slave game arrives on British shores this week with a ton of baggage. Is London ready?

“Slave Play” is at the Noël Coward Theatre in London from June 29 to September 21