Review: THE DARKEST PART OF THE NIGHT, Kiln Theatre

For a play with music as a central motif The Darkest Part of the Night never hits the right notes. In fact, music is literally the epicentre of director Nancy Medina's production, as the set is dominated by a giant plastic record that inexplicably spins at certain points. For a serious play about heavy themes, it undermines everything spectacularly. But even without the set design the tone is incoherent and sometimes uncomfortable.

Zodwa Nyoni's new play follows Dwight, an autistic black man, processing his mother's death as he reflects on the difficulties of his childhood. The stage becomes his fragmented memory-scape. He recounts arguments between his unemployed father and truculent mother, childhood games with his solicitous sister Shirley, and clashes with a racist teacher.

But his memories are half-formed, and many sequences are abrasive arguments about Dwight's undiagnosed autism, each more acidic to the ear than the last thanks to over-the-top performances. Dwight is arrested and detained under the mental health act. His only respite is music which he dances and sings to when he is alone.

When a plot finally emerges, it is too mired in platitudes to carve out a genuine emotional nexus. Dwight's father Leroy starts a protest for seemingly no other reason than to drive the plot. Then there is the underwritten white care worker who attempts to fight the system, much to the dismay of his distrusting mother who refuses to diagnose her child. The writing wades awkwardly into the intersection between black identity, neurodivergence, and the healthcare system, giving none the sensitivity, nor focus they deserve if they are to be explored on stage.

There are moments of grace, notably between the young Shirley and Dwight played by BRIANNA DOUGLAS and Lee Philips, who have an undeniable chemistry. But those moments are accidental rather than earned because characters often feel subsidiary to the play's issues. There is an overwhelming sense that the writer prioritises themes, and then shoehorns in characters to fill the gaps. The result is inorganic melodrama, missing a beating heart to pump blood around it, leaving it cold and stale.

Scenes rarely flow from one to the other; the sequence where Leroy confronts his wife in a police cell after he is arrested decorates itself as the play's emotional high tide mark. Leroy pours out emotions, but the clunky dialogue melts into air because he is a mouthpiece for ideas rather than a genuine living and breathing character. And then that tacky TGI Friday-looking record starts spinning beneath them to add insult to injury.

It is not the only uneven design choice. The whole set is unbearably sparse, courtesy of the Kiln Theatre's vast height, which swallows the two 1970s sofas either side of the stage and then, greedily, the actors who are left floating like drowned insects in a pool. Behind them is an ugly wall made of amps with no dramatic relevance other than reminding the audiences that Dwight likes music (as if the giant record was not enough).

It is difficult to consider what Nyoni and Medina want audiences to take away from The Darkest Part of the Night. There are just too many ideas trying to clamber through the door at the same time. Consequently, each become stuck in the doorframe. Perhaps with ruthless editing, the play could better focus on what it wants to say, but in its current iteration, The Darkest Part of the Night is a shot in the dark.

The Darkest Part of the Night plays at the Kiln Theatre until 13 August.

Photo Credit: Tristram Kenton.

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