Winston Light
Winston Light
If the traditional Oxford summer pastimes of punting, Pimms and Shakespeare in the garden are beginning to wear a bit thin at this late stage of term, Taiye Tuakli-Worsornu’s new one act play can offer some relief and a drastic change of scene. Winston Light examines what happens when the carefully constructed illusions of a wealthy American wife are shattered by the news that her husband has died, and was secretly gay.
Reeling from the news, the widow Lux is visited by a young black bisexual man claiming to have been her husband’s lover, the eponymous Winston. The ensuing conversation between them enacts a confrontation between the haves and the have-nots, white and black, repression and experimentation. Lizzie Acker is suitably disorientated as a woman whose world is crumbling around her, alternately strong and nervy as she tries to make sense of contradiction.
Shu Nyatta has incredible presence on stage, leaving erotically charged pauses in the sexual power game that develops, and is convincing as the multi-faceted “clever crackhead,” at once masculine and vulnerable. We do occasionally feel that we are being overburdened with provocative subject matter �" the revelation of Winston’s child abuse, for example. This is largely a sexy and slick production, however, with almost no lulls in pace.
Winston Light deals with the grey areas of experience; the things we choose not to see, the understanding we almost attain. The large black and white Mapplethorpe photograph which dominates the set, with its connotations of sexual ambiguity, casts a shadow over Lux and Winston’s reconciliation; have they discovered any new light, as their names suggest, or are their cultures too different? This play offers no solutions and is a teasing and stimulating exploration of the hidden side of society.
2nd Jun 2005