Tunde is turning 30 and there is a fair amount of talk about cake. As the king of birthdays, he always likes to go big but is having a “quiet one” this year. He is quiet in other, more emotionally coiled ways, too. The playful stuff about blue icing and Victoria sponges is part of the confection of Ifeyinwa Frederick’s funny, humane monologue that eases us into a slowly searing drama about masculinity and mental health.
Frederick’s debut, The Hoes, was about three young women experiencing a quarter-life crisis, of sorts. Now she turns to masculinity – and one young, lonely Black British man – in a far more serious state of crisis. Tunde, who is played with big, lovable energy by Joseph Black, tells gym jokes and brims with sexual braggadocio at the start (he keeps a tally of the women he has slept with and reads it out, one smirking name at a time). But he also lets his phone ring off, unable to talk, and seems, ominously, to be packing up his life.
Under the direction of Philip Morris, he combines inner outpourings with one-way conversations with his friend Jag, his British Nigerian family and a job recruiter who only ever seems to deliver bad news, putting on a breezy front for them all. When his despair leaks out, his inner voice berates him for it: “This crying,” he remembers his father telling him, “it’s not something we Adeyemi men do.” And yet he cries, uncontrollably, both by himself and during sex. The only time he reveals any hint of the growing chasm inside is when he speaks to a therapist. Then we learn how his girlfriend of more than five years had an abortion and left him, though he is also hiding this from his family.
It does not matter too much that the set looks uninspired (cardboard boxes and a black leather chair), or that the music and lighting seem abrupt. There is some broad-brush characterisation, too, such as the stern, lecturing father and a few moments feel static. Black’s performance lifts it all, bringing laughter and also sudden bursts of emotion. “I’m drowning,” he says to his father, who refuses to hear his son’s vulnerabilities. He records a soul-baring message for his ex-girlfriend – a kind of SOS – but sends her a terse, inscrutable one instead. There is a tender moment when he opens a box containing baby booties and toys to look longingly at his lost dream of fatherhood. And frustration when he musters the courage to ring a depression helpline but is put on hold until he gives up. Walls, both inner and outer, seem to be raised whichever way he turns.
Given the high suicide rates among men, Frederick’s drama feels timely and alarming, with just a sliver of hope at the end.
At Soho theatre, London, until 4 December.
• In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org
