Shock and awe from Broadway: race, sex and Deep South fantasies

PREPARE to be shocked. Jeremy O.Harris's bold, scabrously witty 2018 play sees three contemporary couples enact pornographic Deep South slavery fantasies as a form of therapy, designed to reignite the black characters' vanished passion for their white partners. At least five people walked out the night I was there.

- Slave Play

It's not an easy watch, not just because of the racist language and discomfiting power-dynamics. The role-playing leads to long sessions where the couples and their therapists (who are also in a racially mixed lesbian relationship) angrily express their feelings. Clint Ramos's echoey mirrored set - enabling the mostly white audience to watch themselves voyeuristically watching also makes it hard to hear at times. But Robert O'Hara's production, featuring a fine British-American ensemble that includes Kit Harington and Olivia Washington is challenging in the best way. It uses sex and therapy as metaphors for society's wider inability to talk honestly about race and touches on the desensitisation of modern life. Though its focus and sphere of reference are wholly American, it feels like a vital presence in the West End.