Review: BRONX GOTHIC, Young Vic

New York-born Okwui Okpokwasili first performed a completed version of Bronx Gothic in the US in 2014 before taking it on tour. In 2017, director Andrew Rossi made the play the subject of a documentary.

It is no wonder that this conceptual piece has been the subject of fascination. Okpokwasili is in the corner of the stage-space as the audience enters The Maria, one of the Young Vic's smaller spaces with 150 seats. The performer quakes, moving in a sort of micro-twerk, in a deceptively effortless way for 15 minutes before the show.

Often, before a play, there's that premature lull in audience chatter if they think it's about to begin. It usually starts up again if it doesn't. Before Bronx Gothic, the auditorium stays silenced. Slightly awkward for latecomers, but enthralling for all else. By the time the house lights go down, Okpokwasili is dripping with sweat. It is absolutely mesmerising.

A fluid melange of dance, movement and spoken word, Okpokwasili tells the story of her childhood experience of growing up in the Bronx. This is reductive, really, as the narrative shape-shifts so frequently that it's hard to get a grasp on what is happening. However, the show anchors itself around the friendship of two young women on the verge of their sexual awakening, loosely framed around letters sent between them.

Permeated with Okpokwasili's experience of growing up, the show looks at the journey from girlhood to womanhood, sexual awakening, and the fragility of young friendships. Woven throughout the piece are moments exploring the lived experience of being a black woman in a world of white privilege.

The performer tells myriad stories using her body, and the shape of the writing changes at the same pace. The piece is interpretative: you don't walk away with a definite idea of what you have been told. Okpokwasili gives away her narrative in pieces and expects you to put the jigsaw together yourself.

It's as though Okpokwasili uses physical movement as punctuation to her dialogue. She'll violently slam herself against the floor after talking about beauty ideals ("Being beautiful is like winning the lottery"), or to communicate the violence of the language of a man cat-calling a young woman, she'll morph her body into an overtly masculine, threatening stance.

Peter Born directs, and also provides the visuals and co-creates the sound design (with Okpokwasili). The set is art-installation minimal: all mini pot plants, lamps and draped curtains. It's pretty, but the lighting and soundscape are the aspects that steal the staging.

The aesthetic works in harmony with Okpokwasili, but absolutely subverts theatrical expectation. Instead of brightly lighting the performer as she takes centre stage to read letters, the lights throw her into shade, her face obscured. Yet, at one point, when the performer is silent, the stage lights are bright, leaving her, and us, uncomfortably exposed. It's so visceral: the audience can feel the heat of the stage lights.

Okpokwasili told the Guardian that Bronx Gothic is "about having some moral clarity". I'm not so sure that clarity is the resolution, but it's a hypnotic 80 minutes piecing together the bigger picture.

Bronx Gothic at the Young Vic until 29 June

Photo credit: Helen Murray