Aisha is “a girl from ends, a felon, a thief” and a child of neglect. When, after leaving prison, she accidentally becomes part of a group of influencers led by V, her life takes a turn. Off on healing retreats and product launches, her old acquaintances threaten her new identity. Angry with a world who expects her to be happy with the scraps, Aisha explodes again. Reparations is one of those pieces of theatre that need to be talked about on two levels.
On one side, Maryam Garad writes an authentic look at poverty, inadequacy, and the systemic failure of the justice system. She builds her plot with lyrical, smooth writing that leads to precise observations and excellent ideas. On the other hand , she soliloquises too artificially for Reparations to convince fully. She whizzes through her lines, neglecting the natural movement of her very own script. It’s very well written, but she doesn’t give herself any flowers by rushing through it.
With as much humour as there is social critique, the structural flow of the text has an innate rhythm that remains unexploited. In essence, this is a weak performance of a compelling script. The reflections that are presented in the narrative aren’t given any space to breathe and flourish. Sometimes this manifests through the very literal speed of Garad’s delivery: by not allowing herself any pause, she doesn’t enable her public to do so either.
The story, too, deserves to be expanded to properly tackle many of its unaddressed strands, but it’s a great springboard for issue-led theatre. Garad introduces a complex personality who represents a very specific type of contemporary malaise. Aisha is not only a vehicle to talk about the lack of care surrounding mental health and the perils of class inadequacy, the character is the protagonist of a bona fide rags-to-riches-to-rags tale. We hope this is not the end of Reparations, it requires some polishing, but it’s on the right path.
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