★★★★★
The Fellowship is a play featuring two sisters, Marcia, played by actress Suzette Llewellyn, and Dawn, played by Cherrelle Skeete. The pair reminisce often about their experiences growing up as the children of the Windrush generation; the civil unrest they engaged in to fight against social injustices heavily fuelled by racism. The audience is taken on a journey from their past to their present. A spotlight is put on the sisters’ relationship when their mother becomes ill, on the cusp of death, and Marcia moves in with Dawn and her partner Tony.
Very simple but effective staging is in place. A living room is in the middle of two huge ring lights, one encircling the living room on the floor and another suspended above the stage. Audience members find out that the rings are Alexa. She is called upon several times over the course of the play for both joyous and joyless moments.
The acting is phenomenal and there is real depth to the characters. Aside from Marcia and Dawn, Dawn’s partner Tony, played by Trevor Laird, steals the show on several occasions. Tony is Dawn’s emotionally unavailable, deeply sarcastic and cheating partner. His terribly placed humour and attempts to stop heart-to-heart conversations in their tracks, makes the audience laugh out loud on numerous occasions.
Another outstanding character is Marcia and Dawn’s mother Sylvia. She embodies the Windrush generation well; her accent, demeanour and fashion sense are all fitting. Her interactions with Dawn are rather painful to watch by today’s parent-child relationship standards—Dawn reminds her mum that she once said she wishes she’d had an abortion.
Dawn and her mum’s deeply combative relationship uncovers the chasm between the challenges the Windrush generation face versus the ones their children are facing. Dawn tells her mother she didn’t do enough for her, to which Sylvia replies sharply that she is entitled to make mistakes and urges Dawn to change her perspective. “You are looking in the wrong place, Dawn. It’s down to yu pickne now, to tek what we got, for better or for worse, and built on it”, said Sylvia.
Herd mentality is very much addressed in the play—the idea that all individuals of a race have to believe the same things lest they betray their own. Near the end of the play Dawn rants about all the opinions she has that she believes won’t be accepted by her Black community. Some of the funniest being: “I agree with every word Piers Morgan says about Meghan Markle…I want to execute the next black person that goes on Master Chef and cooks jerk chicken…I don’t want Idris Elba to play James Bond”.
By addressing this, and other serious things like the Windrush scandal, the play is made three-dimensional and topical. Heartstrings are really pulled and headlines put into focus when Slyvia says: “Why this country is in such a hurry now to send us all back home is a mystery to me”. It is more than good acting and an interesting subject matter, it registers as something relatable to the audience, even if just on a current affairs level.
The Fellowship looks at the birthing pains associated with going ‘from black in Britain to black British’ in the words of Marcus Ryder, co-founder of the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity. It is a truly deep work of art that humanises racial and identity politics and uses humour and wit as a powerful tool of communication.
The play is by Roy Williams and directed by Paulette Randal, and is showing at Hampstead Theatre till 23 July.
Words by Solape Alatise
Support The Indiependent
We’re trying to raise £200 a month to help cover our operational costs. This includes our ‘Writer of the Month’ awards, where we recognise the amazing work produced by our contributor team. If you’ve enjoyed reading our site, we’d really appreciate it if you could donate to The Indiependent. Whether you can give £1 or £10, you’d be making a huge difference to our small team.