Review Theatre: Category B | Tricycle Theatre | Roy Williams | Black writers | Prison | overcrowding | brutal regime | Jimmy Akingbola

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The Review - THEATRE by ANGELA COBBINAH
Published: 15 October 2009

Hardhitting drama:
Category B at the Tricyle Theatre

Life in the can’s in the balance

CATEGORY B
TricycleTheatre

ROY Williams’ Category B is the impressive opener to a season of plays at the Tricycle by black writers on the state of Britain.
The setting is a prison, which, according to senior prison officer Ange (Sharon Duncan-Brewster), is regarded as the “shit of the shits” because of chronic overcrowding.
But life inside is not the brutalised regime commonly portrayed on screen and stage because officers and inmates have worked out a modus vivendi. Warders turn a blind eye to drugs, allowing hard man Saul (Jimmy Akingbola) to control the trade in return for keeping the other prisoners in their place. This includes the clever but unpredictable Errol, who looks permanently close to the edge, and Saul’s “deputy” Riz. Idealistic new warden David wants to do things straight, but he is laughed down by Ange.
This careful balance of power is shattered by the arrival of young “brer” Rio, who’s inside because of peer pressure rather than badness. By somewhat implausible coincidence, he is related to an older inmate who takes him under his wing, with disastrous consequences.
The menace that lurks beneath the banter between the two power blocs surfaces, bringing with it a bent screw and a prison “snitch”.
Although all the inmates in the drama are either black or Asian, a sad reflection of a real-life prison, the play is not so much about racism but about a flawed system creaking at the seams. It also sheds light on the institutionalisation of not only prisoners but the officers. The screws do have a home life but, if the likes of Ange and her colleague Andy are to be believed, not one they look forward to much.
This drama is gripping and well acted all round. Tensions are high but there is plenty of humour, and even if the characters are not particularly admirable, they all elicit sympathy.
Until December 19
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