History can either corset or liberate a dramatist. Nick Stafford's last play, Battle Royal, was a bum-numbing narrative about George IV and Caroline of Brunswick. But his new play, presented as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's This Other Eden season, is a richly intelligent, tightly written play about the inescapable influence of past on present.
With great skill, Stafford interweaves three different periods to explore the dubious ethical origins of the Mercer family's fortune. In the present we see Debra, a progressive black artist, returning to the home of her adoptive, liberal white mother, Margaret, after a mysterious two-year absence. Back in 1899 we see how Margaret's grandfather, James, was a diamond- explorer in Kimberley who embodied the Victorian notion of white superiority. And in 1799 we learn how the name of Mercer was appropriated from a black African by a murderous servant who turned into an arms-and-slave dealing Quaker.
Stafford is not just dealing with the peculiar origins of a particular family. He is suggesting that modern attitudes have historical causes and that you can't understand our own society's racism without excavating our past. It is a crucial point illustrated through some vivid metaphorical writing. In one of the best scenes the Victorian James lovingly explains the complex beauty of a raw diamond to his future bride adding that "colour is an indication of flawed elements trapped within the crystal". The lines acquire irony as he discovers his bride's own racially mixed origins.
Occasionally there are flaws even in Stafford's own elegantly shaped crystal. In the present, Debra and her adoptive teacher-brother lapse into arch games exposing academic absurdity. But this 105-minute play manages to make virtually every line relevant to its central theme. It is also directed by Gemma Bodinetz and designed by Kandis Cook with a rigorous economy so that a rearranged pile of glittering shale instantly evokes a different place or period. Karen Bryson as Debra, Susan Engel as her adoptive mother, Tom Smith as the Victorian diamond geezer, John McEnery as a bogus Quaker and Jude Akuwudike as the African ur-Mercer also give fine performances in a play that not only shows how the past creates the present but also urges us to examine the roots of our own prejudice.
Until May 1. Box office: 020-7638 8891.
