A Black couple have moved into a gated suburban enclave and the white folk around them are worried. Who are they, and could they be connected to the sudden appearance of a grubby shack nearby? Who lives in that shack, for that matter, and will this blight on their rarefied landscape grow, multiply and encroach?
The racialised fear of the invading outsider is under scrutiny here, and the rich Black couple, Sihle (Sifiso Mazibuko) and Bonolo (Mimî M Khayisa), are torn in their stance toward the shack and the threat it is seen to pose. Proprietorial white neighbours Chris (Scott Sparrow) and Lynette (Olivia Darnley) insist their panic is tied to community responsibility, while the jittery Andrew (Kai Luke Brummer) and Jess (Robyn Rainsford) overtly imply that any – Black? – squatters nearby will bring down the price of their property.
Amy Jephta’s play carries shades of A Raisin in the Sun, and several other community-clash dramas (including Eureka Day). But what makes it fresh is its sophisticated treatment of race and gentrification.
Jephta is a South African playwright who has brought previous works to the Royal Court and here writes some superb social satire. It is never stated that the suburb is in South Africa, which leaves you discombobulated, but Sihle and Bonolo are certainly part of South Africa’s new Black middle class, having risen from nothing to live in this exclusive enclave. They put on a smiling front to the neighbours but debate and dispute their insider/outsider status between themselves, and their position on the shack – Sihle more confrontational, Bonolo eager to fit in.
Under the direction of Nancy Medina, the satire glints with sharp edges, reminiscent of Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage in its barbs and verbal volleys. There are great performances from Mazibuko and Khayisa, who grow in depth as they defend their positions or switch between standpoints. The white couples have less to do, and are far flatter.
Played ostensibly in a naturalistic vein, there are occasional surreal breakouts which Sihle and Bonolo enact as fantasies. It is original and adds another theatrical layer. ULTZ’s set design, with its slightly skewed shack in view, reflects this surrealist element. Couples bring on their own home furnishings, scene by scene, as if contesting ownership of the space on stage itself.
What is not needed is the jarring breakouts of didacticism in which characters (particularly Sihle) explain what is apparent in the loaded exchanges between couples, such as the dichotomy of “us” and “them”.
But the production comes back from these moments well enough, and the arguments between the Black couple feel real and complex. There is both an exploration of their status as outsiders among the white community and also an interrogation of what it means to belong here. Do they want to be insiders at all or remain wilful outsiders, keeping a connection to the imaginary invaders in the shack – and their own past geographies? How does being on the “inside” compromise the integrity of their identity politics, as well? The layers to this line of questioning are what gives this play its depth.
• At the Royal Court, London, until 8 February, then at Bristol Old Vic from 14 February to 8 March.
