Why would the producers of a new West End play think it a good idea to put on select performances for all-black audiences, effectively telling white theatregoers they’re not welcome on those nights? The idea of Black Out nights (as they have become known) amounts to segregation by race and skin colour. Yet this is exactly what will take place when Slave Play, written by American playwright Jeremy O Harris, starts its run at the Noël Coward Theatre this summer.
Is he suggesting black people can only feel safe with other black people?
Two nights – 17 July and 17 September – have been allocated to all-black audiences to watch the play ‘free from the white gaze’. What does this phrase even mean? It doesn’t take much to imagine the outrage if someone suggested theatre nights for all-white audiences because theatregoers were at risk from ‘the black gaze’. Other questions loom. Who gets to decide who is black enough to attend, especially when it is suggested that those who ‘identify as black’ qualify for entry? What of married couples, where one partner is white and the other black, what happens then? The play’s co-star, Kit Harington – who played Jon Snow in Game of Thrones – happens to be white.
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