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| Stiff-backed pride in the face of prejudice ... Gershwyn Eustache Jr as Gilbert and Leah Harvey as Hortense in Small Island Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian |
I missed seeing The National Theatre’s production of Small Island the first time it was shown in theatre.
In the past few weeks, Rebecca has been dropping hints that I am just going to love it, even though the themes carry with them a lot of hurts. So in the spirit of thinking that seeing it sooner in it’s short life on you tube, than later, I got myself ready to see it last night – a little over 3 hours, with one 1 minute 30 second break for an interval.
I am carrying with me my new way of reading books and viewing films: have a page where I respond to my reading or viewing, not a page of retelling the story.
As well, I try to read a few reviews that aren’t spoilers and I try to learn the names of the characters and the actors who play them. That is about all of the preparation I do for viewing.
So after seeing the show last night, I am left wondering what I can write about the film. How I can engage with the film. I have taken a few tries – noting the different locations in the film, or wondering why it is that a main character like Gilbert doesn’t even come into view until well into the story.
In another part of my present life, I have been trying to write a tribute to my dad. That is what we are doing in Zoom Church this week: bringing a paragraph or two, even more, of tributes to our fathers and reading them outloud. So fatherhood as a concept has been on my mind. Now tonight, I think about Small Island, about its final scene, about the deep complexity of fatherhood and how it is left there for me to think about, with so little judgement about what is going on in the characters’ lives at the end of the production.
Since we can see this film for a week, I was wondering what kinds of questions I would ask my loved ones about the film after they have seen it. I am asking this question early in the week. Amidst the other issues of the racism in the1940’s, was anyone else taken with the complicated views Small Island gave us about fatherhood?
Arta
(To view, just type into the browser window, "you tube national theatre" and then click on Small Island.
Stunning play. I need time to digest it. I want to read the novel now. I was struck by the complexity of the role of "father" in the play. There was a highly verbal father whose love was so intertwined with fear and power-dynamics, and a non-verbal father whose love was palpable even though he had his own debilitating fears. "Master, the tempest is raging," was so apt and flexible throughout the play. I heard, "carest thou not that we perish, how canst thou lie asleep," with new ears as I reflect on the systemic changes that must occur, and the deeply entrenched racism that has survived across so many generations. I understood my British roots in a new way.
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