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REVIEW: UPRISING
By Shaun Ajamu HutchinsonSunday, February 20, 2011.Translating
the big, historical events of the early 1980s' Britain through the voice of
a young Black boy coming of the age in the same era is the essence of
writer Alex Wheatle's Uprising, which has just finished a second run at
Wandsworth’s Tara Arts Studio.Through
this play, the 40-something writer and MC shows us that history often
moves in circles; economic crisis, cutbacks to social programmes, mass
unemployment and despair, and you may feel that the play is set in 2011
and not 30 years earlier. Add discrimination in all fields, especially
in education and employment, police harassment and all too frequent
deaths in police custody - and a volatile mixture predictably exploded.Back
in the early 1980s, the unfolding drama involved the Black community in
South London and other parts of England revolting against rabid racism
and inequalityThis
rage – which the mainstream media referred to as the Brixton Riot - is
what Wheatle puts into drama. His versatile and creative writing has
taken a perceptive eye to 30 years of Black culture in Britain; from
the chat pon-the-mic lyricism of the 1980s sound-systems, evolving into the
spoken-word scene, through to the urban drama genre.The
Brixton bard’s acclaimed novels - Brixton Rock (1999) and East of Acre
Lane (2001) - already deftly capture the spirit of the young Black male
experience of the 1980s. So Wheatle the writer - who also lectures in prisons
and schools - is well qualified to share his experiences in a concise
autobiographical performance which relives his own take on that era. Told
in several episodes fused with reggae songs, spoken word verses and
dancehall style lyrics, his memories of the April 1981 rebellions are at
the heart of this performance, merged with inspiring sketches of his
eventual success as a writer.Just
as important are the harrowing details of his early life; born out of
wedlock and growing up in a brutal and oppressive Children’s Home is
still clearly a raw scar in this writer’s life, and the experience may
be the source of many bitter sweet tales.Although
the void of family and community of his early years was substituted by
a surrogate collection of hustlers and street corner dons, from
Brixton’s Front Line the normality he craved didn’t come from this
source either. And suicidal despair soon extinguished the euphoric
aftermath of the Uprising as he again faced abandonment and isolation.
But it’s the retelling of his prison experience which ignites the
performance. With a Bible-chanting, karate expert Rastafarian for
company, he soon developed a taste for books, literature and Black
consciousness which laid the foundation for a future career, first with
Brixton sound systems, then as a street corner poet and finally a
novelist.Tara
Arts Founder and Artistic Director Jatinder Verma, has given the strong-voiced Wheatle a free hand to relate his story with a simple and
straightforward direction. With just a table and chairs as props and a
solitary black Stetson hat to impersonate a character from his days on
the Front Line, Wheatle prowls the compact floor level performance
space, relating his at times hilarious, sometimes disturbing anecdotes
with intimate and refreshing honesty.Although
he’s not a natural storyteller, his sometime disturbing experiences are
told with no embarrassment at all. Ending after 45 minutes I wanted to
hear even more of this engaging Wheatle’s tales. And with his intention
of taking Uprising on a tour of the literature festival circuit I
suspect the writer and performer has more to give.UprisingBy Alex WheatleTara Arts StudioDirected by Jatinder Verma
Shaun Ajamu Hutchinson is The New Black Magazine's arts editor and a London-based freelance journalist.
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