“G” at the Royal Court Theatre
Tom Bolton in West London
31 August 2024
Upstairs at the Royal Court the set, by Madeleine Boyd, consists of a pair of spookily perfect white trainers hung from the wires above. This is all we need to signify G’s London setting and teen characters, but Tife Kusoro’s new play defies expectations of urban drama about social issues. G is a complex, layered, and ambitious work that ignores the boundaries between forms and signals an exciting talent.
It concerns three black school friends – Khaleem (played by Ebenezer Gyau), Joy (Kadiesha Belgrave), and Kai (Selorm Adonu). Their relationships are close, funny, and fractious, as teens are, but there is more going on. Kai and Joy are trying to summon Baitface the Gullyman (Dani Harris-Walters), rumoured to be the spirit of a black boy who died. The trainers belong to him. As the back story unfolds, we realize the three are being questioned by the police over an incident, and have been caught on CCTV. Then their alter egos emerge – versions of themselves in balaclavas, trapped in glitchy movement sequences as though frozen by the cameras.
The play is a rich, dense thicket of London teen slang. Kusoro’s dialogue is complex and fascinating, and her characters expressive and real. The language draws us into a parallel world, where to be young and black is to be followed around Londis as a matter of course. It becomes apparent that G is about the experience of being under surveillance, and the way black teens are excluded from society as a matter of course. Kai runs an illicit business in school, selling balaclavas.
The Royal Court stage is neatly configured like a catwalk, with the audience seated on both sides facing each other, making us study one another as well as the performers. But Kusoro’s work is also reminiscent of ’80s and ’90s horror, for example Candyman, as the young protagonists open up portals to another terrifying dimension – except that, for these characters, the terror is the truth about the world they inhabit.
The combination of realism and fantasy in G, and the use of movement, is bold and clever. With choreography by Kloé Dean, Monique Touko’s production incorporates powerful elements of dance. In the masked scenes, where the characters move like zombies caught in a video loop, the play breaks out of conventional speech-based performance to express themes that are strange, disturbing, and beyond words.
Faced with challenging material, the cast is exemplary, giving fully committed performances. Gyau is charming, charismatic, and driven to the edge. Adonu is twitchy, sensitive, and very funny. Belgrave is sharp but desperate not to be noticed, and her friendship with Kai is remarkably touching as a trans theme emerges. Harris-Walters delivers menace and daring, whether wrapped in bandages or dressed in ice-white street gear.
G is audacious and engrossing writing which taps into a reality that is part of every London neighbourhood, and cities beyond, but runs parallel to the lives of many. Kusoro puts powerful cultural identity and uncomfortable, urgent political themes on stage together and, seemingly without effort, makes them a distinctive, original stage experience. The production showcases her skills and potential, as well as those of the excellent young cast. And Touko, after recent shows including Fair Play at the Bush and Wedding Band at Lyric Hammersmith, is building an impressive CV as director.
