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London’s boldest new writing theatre the Royal Court has a had a long – albeit sporadic – history of becoming embroiled in antisemitic controversy, most famously with the wildly offensive 1987 play ‘Perdition’ – which was pulled prior to its first performance – and most recently the lengthy kerfuffle over last year’s ‘Rare Earth Mettle’ – which featured a greedy billionaire lead character who seemed to be a collection of antisemitic tropes.
Although ‘Jews. In Their Own Words’ was apparently in development prior to that, the timing and prominent position in the new Royal Court season feels like a pointed attempt at atonement. Written by Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland after an idea by the actor Tracy-Ann Oberman, it’s a verbatim play – apparently with songs! – based on interviews with Luciana Berger, Stephen Bush, Margaret Hodge, Howard Jacobson, Tracy-Ann Oberman herself, Dave Rich, Simon Schama and more that attempt to trace a path from the roots of the prejudice through to modern Britain, with a special focus on antisemitism’s manifestation amidst the British left. Co-directed by Royal Court boss Vicky Featherstone and Audrey Sheffield, it runs from September 19 to October 22.
Elsewhere in the season and the most obviously intriguing play is the short run for the legendary Martin Crimp’s ‘Not One of These People’, which will – somehow – use deepfake technology to bring 299 characters to the stage, and is intended as a provocative exploration of the boundary between empathy and appropriation. It runs from November 3 to 5.
The other plays announced today are Rabiah Hussain’s ‘Word-Play’ (September 28-November 5), which examines the consequences of a prime minister’s Islamophobic ad lib; Jasmine Naziha Jones ‘Baghdaddy’ (November 18-December 17) a coming of age tale about a young Iraqi girl in Britain during the time of the first Gulf War; ‘Sound of the Underground’ by Travis Alabanza (January 19-February 25 2023) about London’s underground club culture and the value of art; Ava Wong Davies’s ‘Graceland’ (February 2023, exact dates TBC) about a couple who meet and fall in love quickly and the eventual fallout from that; and actor and occasional playwright Danny Lee Wynter’s ‘Black Superhero’ (March 14-April 29 2023) about a man who has an unexpected encounter with a hero and plunges into a reality blurring world of sex and drugs in the hope of being rescued again.
Tickets go on sale to the general public Tue Jun 21.
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