Just scanned the tag and while there are plenty of posts about Kit Harrington doing SLAVE PLAY in the UK, and much fewer noting that Olivia Washington (I'm A Virgo), the co-star is Denzel Washington's daughter in a big stage production debut. In this particular promo interview for it, the idea of Black audiences being invited on certain nights is questioned... And I have to wonder if senior nights, ladies nights (for gender-based performances of shows) or nights for the hearing impaired, or family nights in a theatre setting (all of which occur) have been questioned like this?? It's also interesting that she addressed Kit about it. I know the show is controversial. White people and Black people hate it for varying reasons. Having not seen it but only reading the various opinions and gazes of those who have... I know it covers one Black man's own psychological wrangling with his own perception of his interracial experiences in sexuality entangled with his Blackness and the racialized/racist perceptions of that, entangled with ancestral memory in enslavement, and embodied by several people ranging in color and shade from Black to white. ...And it's comedy/drama(trauma). So I'm not surprised. Theatre that is challenging and offensive and at the margins should always be an essential thing, regardless of my own personal disgust about a piece. Anyway, I'm ending w/ this video of Janelle Monae's Screwed for no reason, whatsoever...except maybe because that sexualized gaze, especially when on Blackness and queerness is always fucked up/exploited/etc, etc...:
Will probably add more when/if I read the play... All that said, I'm glad both lead performers handled those questions well.
