The Niceties review: Intriguing but inconclusive culture wars debate
“I love critical dialogue,” says Janine, a white professor of history at an elite American college. Zoe, a black student, feels like Janine’s love of ‘critical dialogue’ is actually a bit, well, racist.
Janine’s problem with Zoe’s thesis – that a successful American revolution was only possible because of the existence of slavery – is that she hasn’t provided enough source-based evidence. Zoe argues that an academy blinded by white privilege puts her existence up for debate when it refuses to acknowledge racism. “I’m so tired of remembering for both of us,” she says.
Eleanor Burgess’s blistering two-hander, which gets its European premiere in Matthew Iliffe’s production, sees an explosive row between professor and student escalate into a full episode of public shaming. It’s a piece that depends on its actors, and Janie Dee and Moronkẹ Akinola are both excellent, Dee highlighting Janine’s patronising disdain for ‘millennials’ – “God, were you even alive for Bush’s election?” – and Akinola conveying the simultaneous exhaustion and indefatigability of someone demanding to be heard.
Burgess makes an admirable attempt to capture a volatile moment in our current discourse, but the play itself is doomed to an unsatisfying narrative arc. It is, essentially, two people having an argument while not listening to each other – and its initial even-handedness goes astray in its second act.
How much you get out of it will depend on what you make of the culture wars debate. You might find it galvanising and enlightening. For me, it was a bit like headaches I get from looking at an angry Twitter thread: intriguing, then frustrating, then exhausting – and ultimately, inconclusive.
Until October 26 (finboroughtheatre.co.uk; 01223 357 851)
