The reaction to Slave Play’s Blackout performances is a reminder of why we need them.
The artwork for the West End staging of Slave Play at the Noël Coward Theatre
A buzz of excitement rippled through the theatre community when it was announced that Jeremy O. Harris’s show Slave Play was being brought straight to the West End this year. When it opened on Broadway in 2019, it became the most nominated show in Tony’s history receiving 12 nominations. And to find out the cast was to include half the original Broadway cast, and star of stage and screen Kit Harrington would be joining the cast? Huge news. Alongside that casting announcement, it was announced that for two shows out of the 110 currently scheduled, they would do Blackout performances. Great news!
If you’re unaware, Blackout performances are shows where the production say “Hey, if you are a Black person and you want to come and see this production but you don’t want to risk being the only one in the room during a show, book on one of these two dates and you’ll be grand. It’ll be mostly people who have shared life experience with you and you can watch this show and relax.” This particular production pitches it as “the purposeful creation of an environment in which an all-Black-identifying audience can experience and discuss an event in the performing arts, film, athletic, and cultural spaces – free from the white gaze.” - and whilst the goal is to have an all-Black audience, no one is turned away if they aren’t. It’s more a case of “could you consider booking one of the other 108 shows on offer please?”
It is not a performance where only Black people are allowed to come. It is a performance where they try and reverse the audience demographics so that the majority of people in that audience are not white. And there are many reasons for it.
The first is comfort, creating a safe environment for a demographic underrepresented in theatre audiences. I am a regular theatregoer - in 2023 I was at the theatre over 100 times. And whilst it is a space I find peace within, I can tell you now there were times I have been sat in a theatre and been the only non-white face in the audience. There have been times when you could count on two hands how many people in the audience aren’t white faces. And even when it is a space you frequent often, and seek solace within, it is not fun to be the only one in the room, even if the subject matter has nothing to do with racism, trauma, and the ongoing legacy of slavery on race relations. Imagine how uncomfortable it would be when that is the subject matter. I am reminded of the way I wanted the floor to open and swallow me whole when I sat in history class, and for the first and last time we looked at Black History. Slavery. And I sat there, not just the only Black person in the room, but the only person of colour at all in the room, and felt 29 pairs of eyes on me the entire time. It’s dehumanising. How much harder would it be to enjoy the show when you’re hyperaware that almost no one else in that room looks like you, has the experience to relate to this show the way you do, and in fact, might get hostile about the subject matter. And for 108 of the shows, that’s the risk that is run, and why?
Accessibility. Theatre is expensive. It is expensive to stage a West End production and so as a result it is expensive to attend a West End production. Figures for 2023 aren’t available yet but as of 2022, the average theatre ticket cost £54.38, with the average top-price ticket being £141.37. We know from a government report into persistent low income published in December 2023, that between 2017-2021 in the UK 45% of people in households in the 'other' ethnic group were in persistent low income, followed by 27% of people in black households – the highest percentages out of all ethnic groups. This is followed by 19% of mixed households, and 19% of Asian households. 12% of people in white households were in persistent low income – the lowest percentage out of all ethnic groups. And when you factor in a severe cost of living crisis that is making times harder for everyone, the people with the least beforehand are feeling the strain even worse. Which, in this country, is people of colour. So whilst they largely cannot afford to drop an average of £54.38 on a theatre ticket, it is much more likely that white people can. Which leads to predominantly white audiences, and the rest of us feeling like the odd one out in the room.
It’s not just about accessibility. Many people of colour do not feel welcome in the theatre. Part of this is learnt behaviours passed on from parents and grandparents who grew up in a time where they very loudly were not welcome anywhere that was considered “high-society” - which of course is code for “white people spaces”, and theatre very much fell into that category. Part of this is as a result of seriously lacking diversity on stage. What we see tells us who is valued within a space, and when the only options for us to see ourselves was to go to The Lion King and see us playing animals, or go to Hairspray and see us fighting to be treated as equals, it doesn’t really inspire a feeling of “I belong here, I am wanted within this space.” Part of it is from comments made by the people within the industry. In 2014 Meera Syal appealed to theatres to do more to appeal to Asian audiences. In response, one of Britain’s most esteemed stage actresses Janet Suzman claimed “Theatre is a white invention, a European invention, and white people go to it. It’s in their DNA. It starts with Shakespeare.” This was only 10 years ago, so it’s not as though these attitudes are totally archaic and in no way present within the space today.
Black-out performances attempt to tackle all of this. You’d think that would be seen as a good thing. But no, it has instead sparked outrage. People are absolutely furious about it, claiming that it is “reverse racism”. People who likely had no interest in seeing the show in the first place are now foaming at the mouths that they’re being politely asked for 2 out of 110 performances to perhaps not book those shows so that Black people can show up and just get to enjoy theatre. The outrage is so extreme that even the Prime Minister has had something to say. A spokesperson for Mr Sunak said:
The Prime Minister is a big supporter of the arts and he believes that the arts should be inclusive and open to everyone, particularly where those arts venues are in receipt of public funding. Obviously, these reports are concerning and further information is being sought. But clearly, restricting audiences on the basis of race would be wrong and divisive. It’s a statement of principle that clearly the arts should be inclusive. And I think that particular taxpayers would particularly expect that to be the case when public funding is involved.
With all the respect this statement deserves, it is a total nonsense, and a tried and true tactic of politicians who are floundering - to jump on public outrage in an election year in the hope it distracts from the mess they’ve made just enough to get angry people back onside. It is noise. It is a total fallacy to suggest the Prime Minister is a big supporter of the arts. He is the one who referred to creative degrees as “low value”, he is the one that suggested artists should simply retrain and get new jobs if they weren’t getting enough support during covid, he is the one who reduced the amount of money promised to secondary schools to fund arts programmes by £20 million (the money never materialised). And it is the party he is a part of that has been cutting funding to the arts and culture sector relentlessly for the last 14 years. It also shows how little he knows of the industry upon which he speaks - Slave Play is being staged at the Noël Coward Theatre, which is owned by Delfont Mackintosh, a private company. It doesn’t receive public funding. It is a commercial production, with the funding coming from Sir Cameron Mackintosh himself. He doesn’t care about the arts, the evidence on that is clear. He also doesn’t care about inclusivity, or being divisive. This is just another chance for him to reiterate what he and his government have made clear - they care only about appealing to the angriest of white voters, and playing on their us vs them mentality. If he actually cares about the arts, he could always start showing that by investing in it, and then perhaps anything he has to say on the matter might carry even a little weight.
And the biggest irony within all of this, is the level of outrage to Blackout performances serves only to reinforce exactly why we need them. No one was risking a stroke from the rage they felt when the Almeida Theatre ran a week of shows for free, exclusively for people under 25. It was celebrated as a way to make Theatre more accessible, even if those particular shows excluded a whole demographic from attending. Safe spaces exist only as a response to hostility. Women-only gyms for example wouldn’t have to have been conceived if they weren’t met with hostility in shared gym spaces. LGBTQ+ only holidays wouldn’t have to have been a thing if LGBTQ+ people could go anywhere and be themselves and know they were safe doing it, and weren’t going to be met with hostility. And Blackout performances wouldn’t have ever needed to be conceived if theatres weren’t hostile places for Black and brown people. But they are, and this reaction is yet more evidence of it. If the creation of safe spaces bothers you so much, if you feel they are exclusionary, then the onus is on you in the majority group to eradicate the need for them, not reinforce it.
Slave Play runs at Noël Coward Theatre from June 29th-September 21st 2024. Tickets available here.