If you want to see what impotent rage looks like, hang around for an outstanding scene near the end of Dominique Morisseau’s play about four workers in a declining Detroit car factory. It’s 2008. Reggie didn’t graduate from high school. “Now look! I’m wearing a tie to work,” he says with self-mocking pride. How can this new homeowner get by if he loses his job, though?
Anyone who’s worked for a living will know how it feels to have responsibility without power. Reggie is caught between the three off-kilter but dedicated workers who don’t quite trust him (and whom the evening revolves around) and the bosses who want him to help to cut their losses at minimum cost. He loses his cool, for a second, as the gradually rising tension of decline and deceit takes its toll. It’s beautifully acted by Tobi Bamtefa and beautifully observed by Morisseau. It says so much about the otherwise slow-burning distress of four black lives being edged out of the frame.
So I’m glad I’ve seen Skeleton Crew, the last show commissioned by the Donmar’s outgoing artistic director Michael Longhurst, realised with unshowy finesse by the director Matthew Xia. The set, by the designer ULTZ, puts us in a faded break room, with signs of factory life just visible above the strip lighting. The bursts of music from the hip-hop producer J Dilla strike the perfect human-meets-mechanical note.
Once or twice we inch towards speechifying, but largely these exquisitely acted encounters are plausible and pithy, as the veteran union rep Faye (Pamela Nomvete, tremendous) stays resilient while seemingly everything in her life crumbles. Meanwhile, the flirting younger pair of the pregnant Shanita (Racheal Ofori) and the rebellious but skilful Dez (Branden Cook) keep hearing whispers of closure.
First seen in America in 2016, Skeleton Crew is full of bright exchanges about the characters’ grim forebodings. It’s a show that sets out to simmer more than come to the boil. So, despite placing characters in compromised positions, it is only loosely packed with incident. Without a few more flashpoint moments and a punchier ending, it’s an impressive evening, but at two hours plus a sluggish one too.
★★★☆☆
145min
To August 24, donmarwarehouse.com
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