Few writers are better than Roy Williams at exploring the contradictions of our multicultural society. Lift Off showed how white kids imitate their black counterparts. And his latest play dazzlingly overturns expectation by showing how, in a murder investigation, it is the black rather than the white cop who indulges in disastrous racist stereotyping.
The physical space itself has also been overturned. On top of the Royal Court stalls, the designer, Ultz, has created a stage resembling a wire-meshed basketball court. This becomes the arena for a police probe into the killing of Kwame, a bookish black teenager bound for university. All the evidence points to a guy called Emile, who hangs out with a gang of local tearaways. But while Matt, the white cop, is prepared to proceed patiently, his black sidekick, Joe, cuts corners by over-identifying with the dead boy.
What Williams pins down brilliantly is the corrosive envy that pervades a culture of limited opportunities. Kwame, we deduce, has been killed because he wanted to escape from the herd mentality of bleak housing estates. And this has repercussions at police level. Having likewise lifted himself out of the rut, Joe cannot forgive the brutal ethos of the street gangs. From this Williams creates scenes of biting irony in which Joe yearns for "the old school of police" while his white colleague is imbued with a post-McPherson, liberal even-handedness.
Williams also shows how sex complicates the issue. Much of the action revolves around the fatal attractions of Shanice, played with astonishing poise by Ony Uhiara, who runs the local cafe. She is a well-intentioned girl who sympathised with the dead Kwame's desire to escape. But, as Emile's girlfriend, she shows loyalty to the gang and is even prepared to intimidate the teacher who had her kicked out of school for theft. In Williams's graphically portrayed world, nothing is ever simple.
My only cavil about a thrillingly staged show is that the opening scene is played for violence rather than clarity, so we miss some crucial information. Otherwise Ian Rickson's production does vivid justice to the play's moral contradictions and its visceral impact. And there is a string of good performances, from Lennie James as the self-destructive Joe, Daniel Ryan as his strenuously fair-minded colleague, Marcel McCalla as the deeply insecure Emile and Michael Obiora as the strutting gang leader. But what is really impressive is Williams's capacity for telling the honest truth and for exposing the divisions within what we term "the black community".
· Until July 12. Box office: 020-7565 5000. A version of this review appeared in later editions of yesterday's paper.
