This Bitter Earth review – fighting and flirting in a wild ride steered by Billy Porter

Soho theatre, London
There is crackling chemistry in Harrison David Rivers’ two-hander starring Omari Douglas and Alexander Lincoln

There are never just two people in a room, or two voices in a conversation. For the interracial gay couple in Harrison David Rivers’s 2017 play, those voices are freighted with complexity: white privilege and Black hurt, queer joy and rage, all shimmering around the simplest dialogue.

Jesse (Omari Douglas) is a Black playwright who prioritises his work; Neil (Alexander Lincoln) is a white activist who comes from wealth and will cross the country to support a protest. Set between 2012 and 2015 – from Obama in excelsis to rising Trump – the play skitters across this timeline, not always clearly (“Emotional truth is of greater value than logic,” reads an author’s note). Scenes are short and sharp – some only a splinter – and typically end in a snog or a strop.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/JtG9z6i