This singular full length Royal Court debut from playwright Tife Kusoro is set in a gloomy patch of inner city London that is topped by a pair of pristine white trainers, which have apparently hung high on a telephone wire for 20 years.
For local school kids Khaleem (Ebenezer Gyau), Joy (Kadiesha Belgrave) and Kai (Selorm Adonu) they are a source of dread: apparently they belonged to a teen wrongfully killed by police who has returned as an entity named Baitface the Gullyman, who will inflict catastrophic bad luck on any boy who walks under the shoes with his face uncovered by a balaclava. And bad luck seems to be overtaking the trio of friends, as the police home in on them for a non-specified crime that took place on a night on which none of them can account for their whereabouts.
What Monique Touko’s production has going for it in spades is atmosphere; what Kusoro’s text has is imagination. ‘G’ is suffused with a cold inner city dread, the inevitable low level paranoia of being a Black teen in London bleeding into something more supernaturally ominous. Exactly how real Baitface is remains ambiguous for much of the show, but he’s nonetheless manifested by white balaclava-wearing actor Dani Harris-Walters, who stalks the stage ominously, occasionally breakdancing like a dervish, at one point straight out stepping over to the seats and eyeballing an unfortunate audience member at close range.
Exactly whether this is happening in our own reality or an alternate one that’s closer to the spirit world is left tantalisingly ambiguous - it certainly feels like happenings we would ascribe to racism are here blamed on othereworldly beings.
Playing out in short, often highly cryptic scenes that unfold in non-linear order, it’s not always easy to stay one hundred percent on top of what’s going on in ‘G’ but the atmosphere is exquisite: as with Punchdrunk’s superb ‘Viola’s Room’, there is a sequence set to Massive Attack’s dark dub monolith ‘Angel’ that will melt your brain.
It has its faults. The ending feels frivolous and tossed off. And a strand about Joy’s gender identity feels like it needs more time devoted to it to really come to anything. But it is, nonetheless, a thrillingly different play - it’s Kusoro’s business what she does next, but if she wants to return to this haunted world, I’m all for it.