You have to hand it to Nicolas Kent. Who else would bring us a six-month season of African-American plays built round a permanent ensemble? And his opening choice is a long-forgotten 1939 play by Abram Hill that, even if it wears its art on its sleeve, has a vivid, racy, theatrical verve.
Hill's hero, Andy Whitman, is a 19-year-old Harlem shoeshine who packs a vicious left hook. Picked up by a two-bit manager, he forsakes the idea of a college education for a life in the ring. But Andy finds, to his cost, that the fight racket is an all too apt metaphor for pre-war America. His cockiness alienates the big promoter and, when he crosses the colour bar in a Scranton hotel, his chances of winning a key bout are doomed. But Andy learns that, even if you can't beat the system, you can at least fight it. Kent suggests this is the first modern, black American play. I'm equally struck by Hill's debt to his white predecessors: most especially Clifford Odets, whose Golden Boy (1937) dealt with an Italian-American who saw prizefighting as the path out of poverty. Hill also inherited something of the missionary fervour of Odets's leftwing work. But, even if Hill's message about resistance to a racially oppressive society is spelt out heavily, it was still a radical one for its time.
What gives the play its vitality, however, is its gutsy language and prodigal characterisation. "A rat hole in Europe is better than a penthouse back home," the hero ringingly declares. And Hill's thuggish promoter, wisecracking pugilist, wiseacre grandmother, and snakehipped vaudevillian evoke the spendthrift quality of 1930s movies. Hill also conveys the loaded racism of American life when the hotel-owner who seeks to deny Andy a room turns out to be a judge at his fight. Kent's production nimbly captures the play's kaleidoscopic vigour. And in a 16-strong cast there are no visible weak links. Kobna Holdbrook-Smith has the right inner rage as the non-conformist hero. And there is good support from Carmen Munroe as his affirmative gran, Joseph Marcell as his compliant father, Stephen Beckett as a womanising heavyweight, and Jenny Jules as a mature goodtime girl. The play is no lost masterpiece; but it has the crackling vitality of a work that puts across its message about racial freedom with an appropriate punch.
· Until December 24. Box office: 020 7328 1000.
