An intergenerational family fallout following the death of a matriarch is the rare setting for Natasha Gordon’s rejuvenating debut play, exploring the different layers of grief.
Nine night is the final night when the spirit of the deceased is given a final farewell following a period of mourning in Caribbean culture. The extended family and friends travel from all parts to support the family, reflecting on the life of the deceased through drink, song, celebration and contemplation.
The deceased Gloria moved to England from the Caribbean, leaving behind her eldest daughter, Trudy (Davy), who longs for Gloria to return, but she never does; instead, Gloria settles in England and has two more children with another man: the devoted Lorraine (Browne) and go-getter Robert (Poyser). As the family begins to come through, it’s the dogmatic but electric Aunt Maggie (Melville) that steals the show at every moment. She represents the generation that embodied and expressed the duality of cultures: the loyal British citizen and the outspoken Caribbean – both can’t truly exist without causing chaos. And chaos it becomes when the action comes to a head when Trudy makes a surprise visit at the wake, fresh from the Caribbean, bearing gifts for the whole family, but not without unleashing her past hurt.
The action of the play unfolds entirely in Emma Williams’ admirably realised kitchen of the house, but thematically it is really the West Indian ‘front room’ – that conservative space in most immigrant homes that represents the hybridity of cultures. This constant negotiation of Caribbean culture with British sentiment dictates the action as it rises and falls in the dissonant space. It witnesses the dynamics of Robert and his white wife (the complexity of which is frustratingly never fully fleshed-out); the isolation and sacrifice of Lorraine who cared for her dead mother in the last months of her life; the loveable but obtrusive Aunt Maggie; and the justified anger of Trudy, the eldest of the siblings, whose presence affects every one of her siblings when she finally arrives.
Director Amanda Huxtable does well to draw out the comedy and drama in equal measure, even though the first half does feel lengthier and slower in pace than the second. Audiences, also, will probably expect more of a spectacle of the rituals associated with nine night than is explored in this version (it would’ve been great, for instance, to somehow contextualise the climactic supernatural turn). Yet despite this, this production shines because British black theatre is permeated with overtly politicised, issue-based stories, making this a refreshing respite into understanding the Caribbean diaspora for what it truly is: human, intense and full of emotion, with Patois for good measure.
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