I watched this in recording via the National Theatre archive. You can watch it here until July 9.
Although this production was performed in 2016, the positioning of the story by director Yael Farber, the musical choices, every aspect of this production feels like it could have been conceived last week. The set is a skeleton of a house, long and thin, which turns on the revolve. We see through any artifice of this building, as Hansberry’s script and Farber’s searing direction tears away any artifice of these characters, particularly the white inhabitants and perpetrators of the mission.
The story is layered and complex; as time passes, our initial impressions of the characters and their relationships crumble to reveal what each character really is. Farber weaves music through the script, both in live representation via the women who walk in a procession across the stage multiple times, and also from offstage. Even early on, this music rings true and causes us to identify the hollowness of the words and actions of the white colonizers.
The irony of the American journalist coming in to ask questions, challenging what he sees and being confronted by the Africans about the racism rampant in his own country, is even more resonant than could have been anticipated, it seems.
The pace at which this production moves makes it feel like boulder tumbling down a steep hill. It picks up speed, that something terrible is coming feels inevitable and visible, yet we don’t know what. When that thing comes, it is a shock - and the space, the air that follows, feels noxious.
Please make time to watch this.