The Barbican's rather hit-and-miss Bite season continues with the British premiere of Christopher Rodriguez's Trinidad tale of past grievances and present lives, and the way we must understand our history to forge our futures. This is very much fledgling work and does look slightly exposed in the Barbican Pit, but it is good to see black experience taking centre stage at the theatre. For all its flaws, this dense, ragged play has an almost carnivalesque, hallucinatory power, and is never less than interesting.
Joel, abroad studying for almost 10 years, is drawn back to Trinidad and to the house where he was brought up by his grandmother, a believer in the ancient Yoruba religion that has mingled with local Catholic practices to create a strange hybrid.
As a child Joel was apparently possessed by spirits and almost driven mad. On his return he is haunted by the past and drawn once more into rivalry with Garth, the young man he believes to be his cousin, who is now a singer with a band that plays rapso (a mix of rap, calypso and salsa). Joel soon falls prey to la Diablesse, the devil woman of Trinidad folklore, who appears here like a wrecked Marie Antoinette figure, a witty witch who "keeps these niggers in their place" with fear and superstition.
The stage is set for a showdown between old beliefs and new, as Joel and Garth learn to resolve their differences and family rifts are healed. This is all far too neatly achieved, with lots of speeches that tie the message of the play up in ribbons, but there is fun to be had along the way with a slick production that has a strong sense of the importance of ritual and an even greater sense of rhythm. Chanting, drumming, rapso are used to stunning effect, creating a mesmerising backcloth to a piece of theatrical storytelling that is all about the importance of oral tradition and memory in a world where the rush of the new roughly shoves the past aside.
Until September 9. Box office: 020-7638 8891.
