Statement of Regret, The National Theatre (Cottesloe), London

Don Warrington as Kwaku Mackenzie in Statement of Regret.

Rating: ****/5

Saturday, 26 January 2008.

Much like The Vertical Hour, this production in the National's intimate Cottesloe auditorium of the latest Kwame Kwei-Armah play, Statement of Regret, also directed by Jeremy Herrin, blends the personal and the political. Set in the offices of the IBPR, the Institute of Black Policy Research, the play's proceedings follow the institute's leader, Kwaku, his office staff, and their many concerns surrounding the black community in Britain, where Afro-Caribbeans and West Indians are often pitted against one another and resentments within the black community, as well as biases from the white community, are all far too common.

Kwaku, however, is not merely the leader of the IBPR. He is also the patriarch of his family, some of whom are employed in the office, including his wife, Lola; his son, Kwaku Jnr.; and his bastard child, Adrian. Family resentments blend with policy concerns in a way that seems far more seamless than those similar attempts that Hare takes on in The Vertical Hour. 

This top-flight cast, especially Don Warrington as Kwaku, deliver the goods in a powerful production directed by The Vertical Hour's Jeremy Herrin with functional sets by that production's designer, Mike Britton. Britton wisely gives us a realistic office setting, placing Kwaku's office ominously above the shared workspace of the others, and allows for the effective disintegration of their common space as the tensions build in the second act. Kudos as well to Chu Omambala in the role of Idrissa, a temperamental but respected member of the office community, who is one of the only intelligent gay black characters in a position of power I've seen on a professional stage in some time. His is a sensitive performance that manages to avoid stereotyping.

I've read reviews of the production that believe it brings up more issues than it can properly tackle, but I think that it tackles it's primary subject, one's heritage in juxtaposition with one's ideals and achievements, very well. Kwaku, who has been dealing poorly with the death of his father, is in constant need of guidance he can only receive through imagined conversations with his father, and his sons, in the wake of his slow and steady decline toward madness, are consequently deprived of their own father's love and council. 

It's a fascinating production that moves forward steadily, something with which to credit Herrin. By the end, you're haunted by the ghosts of the characters' pasts in a way that only the late great American August Wilson could have evoked as strongly. It's clear that Kwame Kwei-Armah, whose Elmina's Kitchen was the first play by a black author to transfer to the West End, is a talented new voice in British theatre. Hopefully he'll continue to provoke audiences in years to come in plays as fascinating as this one.