Racism, as Mel Pennant’s new play explores, does not come from nowhere. It is planted by society, its roots extending through soil nurtured by bigoted jokes and casual slurs. A xenophobic gag and a racist murder might not be comparable, but Pennant suggests that they lie on the same continuum.
Jackie (Penny Layden) angrily insists that the R-word, as she calls it, does not apply to her and her family. Turning up on the doorstep of Evelyn (Judith Jacob), whose teenage son Michael was brutally murdered 15 years ago to the day, Jackie begs her to let the past lie. Perhaps the attack wasn’t racially motivated, she suggests. Perhaps it was just an accident.
There are distinct echoes of the murder of Stephen Lawrence in Pennant’s plot: a black boy killed by a group of white lads, a bungled police investigation, perpetrators still not brought to justice. The focus here, though, is on the mothers who are left behind to deal with the aftershock – on both sides. In its stronger moments, Seeds pushes at the limits of maternal love, asking how far a mother would go to protect her son.
But both script and production are awkwardly geared towards ratcheting up dramatic tension, sometimes at the expense of the real issues at hand.
Truth is revealed in slow dribs and drabs, in ways that occasionally stretch plausibility. Pennant sows hints and clues that are later harvested as full-blown revelations. Anastasia Osei-Kuffour’s direction lays the suspense on thick, while a huge, portentously lit portrait of Michael at the centre of Helen Coyston’s set is an unnecessary, on-the-nose reminder of why these two women have been brought together.
It all feels clunkily contrived, draining urgency from the important questions that Pennant is posing. The two actors radiate convincing emotional anguish, but the material pushes their characters to the edge of credibility. Towards the end, the notes of melodrama that have been present throughout build into a crescendo, drowning out the play’s complex considerations of racism in its various forms. Overblown tragedy eclipses the more prosaic but insidious prejudice that can slowly sprout into violence.
