Paul Anderson, review of Fallen Angel and the Devil Concubine (Graduate Theatre Company, Almeida), Tribune, 21 July 1989
The Jamaican Graduate Theatre Company's offering for the London International Festival of Theatre tells the story of two destitute women, one white and one black, thrown together in a tumbledown, one-time colonial mansion in Kingston of which each claims to be the rightful owner. Lettie (Carol Lewis), the black woman, says she was left the house by the woman for whom she worked for 43 years; Katie (Honor Ford. Smith) says that the house was left her by her father.
As the play progresses, with both actresses putting in excellent performances, it becomes increasingly clear that both Lettie and Katie are hiding something. And in the final act each discovers the other's secret.
Lettie was disgraced after mothering an illegitimate child; Katie was disowned by her family because she eloped with a black man. Both have constructed myths about their pasts to protect themselves against a hostile world. Neither has a convincing legal claim to the house.
This is a didactic piece, pointing to the common experiences of womanhood and poverty that transcend racial and other prejudices, but it is not dire agitprop.
The characters are subtly observed and the dialogue (much of it in patois) fast and funny. And, like nearly everything else in LIFT, it's very different from anything now being done in the British theatre. Well worth catching.
