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A meeting of capitalist culture
MEETINGS
Arcola Theatre
HAPPY couple Jean and Hugh are enjoying the fruits of their success, earned off the back of Trinidad’s 1980s economic boom. However, Hugh’s quest for traditional Trinidadian home cooking leads him to discover more than just the perfect meal.
Meetings, Mustapha Matura’s insightful play, firmly places the political within the personal, using the couple’s smart new kitchen as a forum in which to debate Trinidad’s complex and fluctuating identity.
Jean’s business dealings with America’s powerful tobacco firms, which want to launch their new, chemically treated and as-yet-untested cigarettes on the island, contrast sharply with the simple pleasures offered by country girl Elsa, who Hugh has employed to cook his food for him.
As the temperature between the three of them is brought to boiling point, we learn that it might not just be tradition that is put at risk by Jean’s business pursuits.
Played out in the claustrophobic space of the Arcola’s Studio 2, Dan Barnard’s direction is competent, even if it never fully exploits the potential of the realistic, fully functional kitchen and the thrill of having food cooked in such close proximity to the audience.
Meetings is an intelligent play, thoughtfully brought to life in an enjoyable two hours. Strong central performances, most notably from Inika Leigh Wright as Jean, ensure that the drama reaches out beyond its Trinidadian setting, widening the questions surrounding the nature of capitalist progress, which is perhaps the spectre at all our feasts.
Until October 20
020 7503 16 46 |
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