A good deal of talk is going around these days about rap/hip-hop hitting the 50-year mark. No need to go into the effect it’s had on the culture over the five decades. No need to iterate how it’s been so influential that it’s been adapted into other forms.
It’s enough to mention that rap has indisputably worked its way into plays. A prime example is Arinzé Kene’s 2018 Misty, now imported from London’s West End and before that London’s fringe Bush. Though perhaps not completely satisfying, the work boasts myriad eye- and ear-popping moments.
Kene, in addition to writing the two-act piece, plays a character that his script – if not the dialogue – identifies as Virus. It’s Virus at the outset who steps to a center stage microphone and with no-ifs-ands-or-buts begins vociferously and insistently rapping, His first words: “A lot of shit happens on the night bus.”
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
The obscenity – already only four words in – is heard repeatedly for the next 120 minutes, along with the popular f-word and the ubiquitous racial slur that starts with “n.” As a matter of dramatic fact, the n-word is used almost entirely in tandem with the word “play” – as in “a n***** play.”
Which happens to be what Kene is in the process of considering for the personal vehicle he’s composed. To be precise about his Misty, he doesn’t rap throughout. He drops the approach and intermittently resumes it. He speaks and sings in a robust baritone as he goes about his reason for dreaming up the work. The strapping fellow – “bloke” might be the slang noun Brits would use – vigorously take full charge of Rajha Shakiry’s wide and predominantly dark set, not only appearing in a play he’s written but appearing in a play about a man (himself) writing a play.
Having over the last several years established himself as a sought-after UK actor, Kene evidently aimed to produce a play reflecting the world as he sees it from a personal perspective. He’s not alone these days, either. He joins Black artists finally allowed, frequently encouraged, to present plays about people who in the often-expressed phrase, “look like us.”
Nowadays, though, the notion of writing a play about writing a play might suggest that whenever a hopeful and determined playwright embarks on that specific subject, it’s because he or she is a playwright lacking anything substantial to say and so falls back on the namby-pamby play-about-writing-a-play approach.
It’s quite possible to watch the often extremely watchable Misty and reach that conclusion. There’s Kene indefatigably thesping away as Virus, while by final curtain, spectators are concluding it’s all been fun but ultimately not sufficiently rewarding.
There’s another strategy for ticket buyers to take, a strategy that at least explains Kene’s purpose: Read Kene’s “From Idea to Page: Notes on Misty” in the program. He discusses his intention to write “a Black play” as opposed to “a white play.”
Considering those bandied-about loose terms, he states that he decided to delve into what a “Black play” is and then create a sample. Going about the process as he hurtles back and forth (sometimes changing Shakiry’s costumes), he persists but finds himself unable to find a solution. Unless maybe that’s the point. Or maybe not. Whatever, he’s left in utter frustration.
This incidentally after having East Londoner friends Raymond (Liam Godwin, masterfully doubling on electric keyboard) and Donna (Nadine Lee, masterfully doubling on drums and voice) mocking him much earlier for attempting to come up with, in their accusatory terms, “a n***** play.”
And now the good news: Before the play’s demonstrated frustration emerges, compensatory elements keep cannonading off the stage. All along, Virus talks about viruses infecting the world. (Misty predated Covid-19 but certainly has meaning.) He goes on about blood cells and random trends, such as, gentrification, that gets on his last nerves.
Also and unforgettably, he copes with, of all things, an eventual barrage of orange balloons. He blows one up and lets it fly away to deflate. He wrestles with them. He blows another up until it pops, signaling the end of act one. To get act two off to a helium-filled start, he appears inside one, spending much effort trying to get out of it. (Jeremy Chernick is special effects designer and must have something to do with all this.).
Then when one of the set’s walls lowers (spoiler alert!), there a final balloon extravaganza. Props Manager Carrie Mossman probably knows how many, but I’ll only say there are too many for an effects-overloaded reviewer to count.
What do these balloons with which Kene grapples again and again represent? Don’t ask me. I can only guess after observing Virus attack them at his pop-pop-pop-pop closing actions that maybe he sees them as the viruses (gentrification?) and blood cells he loathes and wants to stamp out.
What can I say? Misty may not pay off when viewed from one angle but viewed from another – Omar Elerian directing and with contributions from Godwin and Lee as music coordinators and non-stop sound designer Elena Peña – Misty pays off like a bright orange Happy Birthday balloon.
Misty opened March 9, 2023, at The Shed and runs through April 2. Tickets and information: theshed.org
