A superb script by Nkenna Akunna details the seeming impossibility of conjoining radically different parts of your identity, exposing the unsatisfying answers left.

Lady, the star of Akunna’s monologue, has a problem. Six months ago, something happened between her and her best friend, Gemma, and they have not spoken since. Invited to Gemma’s housewarming, and knowing no one there, Lady uses more and more social lubricant to build her courage in order to confront her friend, knowing that they cannot move forward until they address the past.

This is a queer coming of age tale, the likes of which are rarely seen on stage. Lady (Amayo) is racked full of justified fear – none bigger than the fear of exclusion if the elders discover her queerness. The relationship between queerness and wider identities is picked at throughout, a recognition that it is a delicate and perhaps unresolvable quandary. In one part, Lady is remembering the music that used to play when she was younger, that would get everybody singing along and hums a notoriously homophobic reggae song, stopping her humming when the lyrics advocate violence against her. It is subtle but all the more brilliant for acknowledging the complexity of memory when identity is in flux.

Akunna’s script is so good it demands a performer that can sing, rap and command the stage. Amayo is up to the task, owning the space and inviting the audience to try and understand the maelstrom of feeling that she is trying to contain at this liminal moment in her life. Chinonyerem Odimba’s direction further lifts the action, the garish pink balloons in the background at first signifying celebration, and then serving as a metaphor for the dislocation that Lady feels.

The show is not perfect; the opening scene feels a little long, picking up only once Lady leaves the party; and the stage feels a little threadbare, though, this admittedly feels like a budgeting rather than creative issue. However, for all of that, it is a fiercely authentic show, daring to take on perhaps the most incendiary issue in Caribbean and West Indian culture. The uncomfortable non-ending highlights that, for certain issues, we still don’t have satisfying answers.

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