Alterations, National Theatre review - high emotional costs of ambition

Plays about the Windrush Generation are no longer a rarity, but it’s still unusual for revivals of black British classics to get the full resources of the National Theatre. Guyana-born playwright Michael Abbensetts, who died in 2016, is often mentioned in books about black British drama, but his plays are infrequently revived.

The story is set entirely in a dusty upstairs tailoring workshop, whose boss is Walker Holt, an experienced Guyanese worker who dreams of owning his own menswear shop in Carnaby Street. When Mr Nat, a Jewish immigrant who’s made good, gives Walker a big order with a tight deadline, the chance of getting a down payment on his dream motivates him to work frantically into the night. But to do so he must motivate his fellow tailors – and avoid being distracted by his wife Darlene.

Walker’s co-workers are a mixed group: the most reliable is the hard-working Buster, who joins Walker in tackling huge piles of plain trousers, which all need some alterations. By contrast, the fancy man Horace is more concerned with boasting, cutting corners and trying to get extra money, while also giving the eye to Darlene, who has just been sacked from her job, and feels neglected. Buster works hard, but needs to visit his wife, who is in the nearby maternity ward. The youngest of the crew is 19-year-old Courtney, the driver, who sees little future in this kind of work.

This lively comedy, which comes from the National’s Black Plays Archive, has been revised by playwright and children’s author Trish Cooke, who provides some additional material for the originally underwritten female and Jewish characters. Despite this, it’s the main men who dominate the stage with their banter, their rivalry, their pride and their ambitions. The language has a naturalistic vitality, with the occasional touch of Guyanese creole, and there are many laugh-out-loud moments. If some of the writing is a little dated, being slightly awkward and rather obvious, most of the jokes land well, and the undertow of sadness about the stresses of the migrant experience pulses with emotional truth.

While Abbensetts was clearly a significant figure, being the first black British playwright to write a television drama series in the UK, thus giving black British actors a national voice, this is not his best play. Much of the substance of the talk is a bit superficial. Walker’s central ambition to make good in his adopted country is well grounded in his emotions, but his fanaticism is both negative and positive. On the plus side, he has the energy and passion to succeed; on the minus side, his relationship with Darlene, who is frustrated and vulnerable, bears the cost of his endeavours.
All this is clearly represented, as are the moments when characters remember the land they came from, but the playwright also implies that their experiences are universal. For every newcomer there must be lifestyle alterations. Mr Nat explicitly compares his life as a Jewish refugee with their histories. Clearly there are some commonalities, especially in the similarities between racism and anti-Semitism, but what gets a bit lost are the specificities of Guyanese migration. So if the play’s men can discuss what it feels like to be disrespected in their new homeland, perhaps the most interesting speech is when young Courtney tells his elders that the younger generation have no future.

At this moment, when Courtney speaks, you suddenly feel the presence of the sus laws policing black youth in the unsafe streets outside the warehouse, and in the future the sky lighting up with the fires of 1980s riots in Brixton, Bristol, Toxteth and beyond. Director Lynette Linton nods towards this bigger reality outside the events of the drama by casting a small ensemble who appear at the edges of the set, designed with enormous detail by Frankie Bradshaw, dressed either as white-suited and optimistic Guyanese or more quizzical contemporary youth. This gives a certain dreamy air to Walker’s world, helped by records of American blues classics and Xana’s energizing new music.

I have to say that I think Alterations looks a little lost on the National’s large, unforgiving Lyttelton stage. The play’s intensity comes from the claustrophobia of its setting and would work better in a smaller space. As it is, the epic quality of the massive clothes racks and hugely detailed surroundings feels out of place for what is really quite a simple comedy. Linton directs the work and action with empathy and a lot of detail: her actors are constantly moving, giving the piece the sense of a gym rather than a workshop. Occasionally, there are deliberate visual spasms, flashes of light and music, which underline the moments of acutest tension, giving the story a greater intensity.

But, in the end, it’s the acting that matters. As Walker, Arinzé Kene dominates the stage, his coiled energy winding and unwinding, climaxing in bursts of passion that burn with really manic energy. Lighting up the stage. He is well supported by Gershwyn Eustache Jnr (Buster), Raphel Famotibe (Courtney) and Karl Collins (Horace) (pictured above), each of whom brings a distinctively individual style to their characters. Colin Mace’s Mr Nat exudes a calm wisdom, accepting the costs of his own ambition, while Cherrelle Skeete’s Darlene embodies the pain of unfulfilled love and her own thwarted ambitions. Despite its shortcomings, its lightweight quality, and its uneasy fit in this theatre space, Alterations offers an enjoyable evening that reiterates the experiences of migration in 1970s London.

• Alterations at the National Theatre until 5 April 
• More theatre reviews on theartsdesk

@AleksSierz