RETROGRADE by Ryan Calais Cameron.
Retrograde had received rave reviews when it opened at the Kiln Theatre and when tickets were announced for a twelve week run at the Apollo Theatre we just had to get tickets and thankfully we did.
While early promotion and advertising seemed to focus on the comedy in the play, we didn't know what to expect given Cameron's first play. Its the golden age of Hollywood - behind closed doors, aspiring actor Sydney Poitier is offered a lucrative contract that could make him a superstar. But what is he willing to sacrifice? Ryan Calais Cameron's explosive new play explores identity, resilience and integrity as it explores a true event in 1950's Hollywood and the reality of a Black actors journey to stardom.
Set in a lawyer's office, the initial dialogue between screenwriter Bobby (Oliver Johnstone) and NBC's snake - like lawyer Parks (Stanley Townsend) was un-c and on point for the period. Drawing gasps from the matinee audience. With Bobby demanding to cast Sydney Poitier in his next movie, the smoking and whiskey drinking Parks keeps him in check, to suggest that even he is on dodgy ground.
"He's Black - Black" says Bobby, loosely based on Poitiers real - life ally screenwriter Robert Alan Arthur, who has written a leading film role for him. "Oh shit double Black" jeers lawyer Parks. The exchange is key to this tense play, fictionalising a real - life meeting to which Poitier had alluded to in various inter-views. It captures a toxic moment in American history when McCarthyism intersected with the Civil Rights movement and racist right - wing paranoia.
Parks wants Poitier to sign an oath of loyalty to America and denounce the actor, singer and civil-rights activist Paul Robeson, before he is cast in the part. If not, Parks threatens Poitier with blacklisting. . There are fantastic rat-a-tat exchanges between the three men, almost Mamet - like in their speed and savagery. Ryan Calais Cameron's writing is sabre - sharp, every demotic and period inflection served to weigh heavy on Poitier and leaving the audience in no doubt as to the danger he was in.
The power of the studio system v a good man, honest and true. Surely he won't give in to the appalling demands, scupper a career just as it was getting started and worse denounce his good friend Paul Robeson. Yes, Poitier signed the oath and the audience groans in disbelief. Later in the scene, Poitier fights back and talks of how people like Parks just hate, hate, hate and he tells Parks he has got nothing, that he wants. He talks about a movement, something incredible to happen and he doesn't want to be on the wrong side of history.
