Pulitzer Prize winning Playwright, Suzan-Lori Parks (SLP) unleashes an earthquake to wipe away the surface and examine what really lies beneath Liberal Society.
White Noise opens with a monologue from Leo, one of the quartet who will take us on a journey for the next few hours, and what a journey it would come to be.
We discover that he has just been beaten up by the local police in a clearly racially motivated attack. Needless to say, Leo is a black and alongside this assault he has been also struggling since childhood with insomnia. Ralph (white) his best friend since college had given him a white Noise machine which was meant to help him sleep by drowning out the thoughts in his head, but he felt it has been stifling his creativity, he is an artist, and has given it up. Dawn (white) his partner is a lawyer, and a model of rectitude, wants him to press charges for the assault. All pretty normal fodder for a plot line so far.
But this is not a normal play because Leo decides that the best way to protect himself from the police in future would be to sell himself as a slave to his aforementioned best friend Ralph for 40 days, in the belief that no other white man would mess with another white man’s property…
Thus, begins a decent into a Kafkaesque sequence of events that measures a high 8 on the Richter Scale on the concept of the Liberal society that they, and by reflection, we all live in. The wokest of white men, Ralph, after some early reluctance quickly takes to being a slave owner and devolves into a what would be hard to distinguish from a White Supremist with actions and utterances that are beyond venial.
Whilst his partner, Misha (black) hosts a podcast called’ Ask the Black’ where callers can ask her questions, which they would never normally dare ask a person of colour.
Misha is on her own journey, in two minds over her show as she has to ham up her blackness, while Dawn finds herself wrestling with her own insecurities from issues of colonialism to white saviour complex. These are the vibrant and fantastical colours and canvas that SLP crafts with for the length of the play.
Although the White noise is nearly 3 hours long, Polly Findlay’s direction keeps it flowing at a steady pace and its surrealist nature keeps you questioning what is coming next, while you question what just happened. The British cast are superb keeping you invested in a plot that could become too fanciful in the wrong hands.
With White Noise, SLP conflates many ideas and themes, and it can be difficult to extract exactly what she would like us to take away from the play. No doubt it is clear that she is demonstrating that beneath our wafer-thin veneer of liberal society with proclamations of the need for greater equality, there is a savage underbelly of a nostalgia for the way things once were. Maybe what we really seek is not equality but to be masters, to have someone beneath us, because maybe we are not benign? Maybe it’s civilisation that civilises us and without the rules and norms we become something quite ugly? Maybe we are only able to sleep soundly because the white noise of liberal society’s mantras keeps us in check with the belief we are good people?
I and not too sure, but I was left shaken, but very happy to have been woken from my benevolent slumber.
Go and see what it awakens in you.
White Noise is at the Bridge Theatre until 13 November
Get 2 for 1 tickets to see the White Noise at The Bridge with Pride
– Log in
– Select any Monday – Thursday performance of White Noise
– Pick your seats then enter code PRIDE241 at the check out to get 2 tickets for the price of 1
Valid on any price band on Monday – Thursday performances until 11 November. Tickets subject to availability.
