Theatre

It feels as if the whole colour spectrum has shifted when you walk into Sacha Wares’ production of ‘Generations’. The dull greys of London’s pavements are replaced with the red dust of a clay floor and the jostling colours of a kitchen, around which an ever-growing selection of crates are placed for audience members to sit on – as if we’ve stumbled upon an impromptu party.

That visual vibrance is matched by the rich tones of a South African choir making the walls ring with its surging rhythms. Led by Pauline Malefane, it establishes the backdrop for a play which itself seems to work according to a musical structure where tragic variations are played out around a few evocative leitmotifs.

For the paradox is this: although the atmosphere is spirit-lifting, Debbie Tucker Green’s latest – and characteristically concise – work (25 minutes) focuses on three generations of a family ravaged by AIDS. Her treatment of the subject is elliptical (almost too much so) –  the influence of Caryl Churchill is discernible in its linguistic spareness: so rather than showing people dying, she depicts a family scene where one by one the members disappear, accompanied by fresh dirges from the choir.

‘I was the cooker – you was the cookless,’ intones the grandmother in one of the cycles of repeated dialogue which focus largely on food and flirtation, echoing the fond cyclical narratives that bind families together. Around her, the family fragments. Subtly devastating.