This was a confrontational evening. Nina was performed and largely conceived by Josette Bushell-Mingo who opened in an amiable tribute-giving style presenting the life and songs of Nina Simone, including Revolution. Then the event turned dark. She took the interpretation of Revolution as going round full circle and vented her rage (as she labelled it) on the lack of progress with racial equality, specifically Black equality. This continued to the point where she toyed with the idea of shooting all the white people in the audience but fortunately decided not to do that and to present some more Nina Simone material instead.
All this was in the context of Nina Simone herself being inextricably involved in the civil rights movement with her songs having a campaigning message. So it was a revealing evening - both in terms of the history of Nina Simone as well as the current rage felt by Black people, a rage fuelled by every ambiguous or less ambiguous assault on their community at the hands of, particularly, the police.
It was strange as a piece of theatre. Josette called it a play but it seemed odd to witness a personal rage that was - presumably - scripted. Certainly the evening passed a 'makes you think' test but I'm less convinced it made the audience - or performer - think differently.
No comments:
Post a Comment