I have never seen a piece quite like this before. It’s performance more than theatre, a collision of dance, singing and the spoken word from the New York alternative scene, courtesy of writer and fearsomely energetic solo performer Okwui Okpokwasili. If only the work were more tightly structured, it would be a phenomenon.
Okpokwasili spends the first several minutes in a corner with her back to us, frantically wiggling and jiggling. Then she turns around and continues with the same thing. In all, the first 15 minutes consists of wordless jiggling and the thought does occur that she might be having the longest orgasm known to womankind. When at last she speaks — talk about delayed gratification — she confirms the suspicion.
I admit to being words-inclined, but easily the strongest sections of Bronx Gothic, directed by Okpokwasili’s husband Peter Born, are the verbal passages, which cover a brutal — and sometimes very funny — exploration of sexuality between two adolescent girls growing up in the Bronx. These fearsome frenemies engage in acerbic exchanges, which Okpokwasili recounts by unfolding a series of letters and slowly discarding the pages over a set already strewn with lamps and flowers.
This dense and complex memory play proudly refuses us any easy answers, giving rise to a suspicion that it might, all along, be a dialogue that she is having with herself. Intriguing, but also frustrating.
Until June 29 (020 7922 2922, youngvic.org)
