Slave Play
Golden Theatre | October 13, 2019
I feel like I’m living out an episode of Sex and the City with an urban twist. “Lights, Camera, Relationship” was Season 6 Episode 5, the episode when Samantha, who hates theatre, reluctantly dragged herself and her friends to Brooklyn to watch her boyfriend, Smith Jerrod, perform in a bad play where he does a full frontal scene and it winds up getting rave reviews. Well, that’s kinda my experience with Slave Play.
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I have a couple friends who saw it and told me not to read the reviews because it’s not what you think, and if I really wanted to see it, reading them would spoil the premise. The title is off-putting, but it actually has some funny parts while other scenes are a trigger that hits you to your core. Three interracial couples try to identify and address their intimacy and racism issues using a “study” by two Yale based grads who are loquacious yet don’t mean much at moments which in itself is hilarious. The Black partners attempt to work through their inability to get pleasure from their white or *off-white* partners. The purpose is to *process* their feelings that the therapeutic study, Antebellum Slave role playing, brings out of them during day 4 of their retreat on a Virginia plantation. The entire set is composed of large mirrors with secret doors that open and close to the next scene. Rihanna’s hit song “Work” is an underlying theme. There’s cantaloupe, violin playing, bales of cotton, whips, a large black dildo, bondage, boot licking, orgasms, and I seriously thought I was watching soft porn theatre until Jim’s character yelled “Starbucks” - the safe word - to end the role playing, and then it was time to decompress and discuss.
⚡️
I don’t want to give everything away for those that want to see it, but by the play’s end, there is Adam and Eve before the fall nudity and you clearly see pink peen if you decide to purchase a good seat. Yeah... this play was A LOT, and it was unlike anything I’ve ever seen! Bravo to the cast for really “going there” - pulling back the curtain on America’s history of power and oppression. Special shout out to my soror and #GRAMFAM Adwoa Blankson-Wood's brother, Ato Blankson-Wood, for a phenomenal performance! If you’re in an interracial relationship and you attend with your partner, your communication with each other may be non-existent as you simmer with anger, frustration, and questions on the way home. Or it may just make you never want to date outside your race cause chile...
⚡️
I have a couple friends who saw it and told me not to read the reviews because it’s not what you think, and if I really wanted to see it, reading them would spoil the premise. The title is off-putting, but it actually has some funny parts while other scenes are a trigger that hits you to your core. Three interracial couples try to identify and address their intimacy and racism issues using a “study” by two Yale based grads who are loquacious yet don’t mean much at moments which in itself is hilarious. The Black partners attempt to work through their inability to get pleasure from their white or *off-white* partners. The purpose is to *process* their feelings that the therapeutic study, Antebellum Slave role playing, brings out of them during day 4 of their retreat on a Virginia plantation. The entire set is composed of large mirrors with secret doors that open and close to the next scene. Rihanna’s hit song “Work” is an underlying theme. There’s cantaloupe, violin playing, bales of cotton, whips, a large black dildo, bondage, boot licking, orgasms, and I seriously thought I was watching soft porn theatre until Jim’s character yelled “Starbucks” - the safe word - to end the role playing, and then it was time to decompress and discuss.
⚡️
I don’t want to give everything away for those that want to see it, but by the play’s end, there is Adam and Eve before the fall nudity and you clearly see pink peen if you decide to purchase a good seat. Yeah... this play was A LOT, and it was unlike anything I’ve ever seen! Bravo to the cast for really “going there” - pulling back the curtain on America’s history of power and oppression. Special shout out to my soror and #GRAMFAM Adwoa Blankson-Wood's brother, Ato Blankson-Wood, for a phenomenal performance! If you’re in an interracial relationship and you attend with your partner, your communication with each other may be non-existent as you simmer with anger, frustration, and questions on the way home. Or it may just make you never want to date outside your race cause chile...
Jennifer D. Laws attends Slave Play at Golden Theatre on October 13, 2019.
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I just laugh when white folks look at me crazy cause my seat is closer to the stage than theirs! Why do some people believe that Black folks don't go to the theatre on a Sunday and have a center orchestra seat? I got the same looks when I traveled to Accra, Ghana standing in the Sky Priority line with my 1A tickets.
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Ode to Rihanna's hit song "Work"
nuh body touch me you nuh righteous
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I'm living my life like it's golden so much that light shoots out of my eyes! Or it could just be the light reflecting off the mirror... lol