Princess and The Hustler
9th April 2019
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| Photo courtesy Live Theatre |
Their life is disrupted by the arrival of the absent father, Wendell senior, the Hustler of the title, who turns up on Mavis’ doorstep with mixed-race daughter, Lorna. We learn in the course of the play that Lorna’s white mother, whom Wendell left Mavis for, has serious mental health problems, and that the pair have ended up on the streets.
Princess is delighted to have a new sister; Junior is angry; Mavis is wary and puts a strict time limit on their stay. The family drama is compounded by events in the bigger world. Junior learns, through his student friends, and tells them of plans for a bus boycott, against the racist hiring policies of the Bristol bus company. Wendell throws himself into the campaign – as a way of getting his feet under the table, according to upstairs white neighbour, Margot.
A couple of weeks later and Wendell seems to have succeeded and is back to his old tricks, gambling down on the docks, while supposedly looking after the two girls. Junior is outraged and disgusted, spurring him to attempt to bribe his father to get out of their lives, with money he has been saving for his photography course.
Mavis is conflicted: she has no illusions in Wendell, but his presence reminds her why she fell for him in the first place. She falls out with Margot, whom till now has been her closest support in bringing up her children single-handed.
This relationship is the most complex and interesting in the play. Margot does seem both genuinely warm and fond of the family, and unquestioning of wider societal racism. She thinks the bus boycotters are trouble-makers; and sympathises with the white bus workers who don’t want to lose their overtime. But there’s a hint of jealousy at losing Mavis’ attention, and humiliation at Wendell’s contempt for her, an older white woman chasing young black men.
Racism also impinges on Princess, when she is snubbed and not invited to a schoolmate’s party, while her lighter-skinned sister is. We see the lively bouncy joyful child come painfully up against the racism that pervades everything. She begins to hate her dark skin and bushy hair, realising they are a barrier to her beauty queen dreams.
It all comes to a head, as Princess apparently asleep, witnesses Junior’s attempt to bribe his father to take himself and Lorna off. We see Wendell pick up the money and can only imagine what he will do with it.
Princess runs away, leaving the family frantic. Wendell and the money are gone.
The denouement I found genuinely moving. Princess has taken refuge with Margot and is returned to the family. Wendell returns, drunk after two night’s absence, and is confronted by Junior. They hear over the radio that the bus boycott has succeeded: the bus company will hire its first ten black drivers.
I felt the final ending was messy, and I came away confused as to what I was to make of it. The community chorus, at the end, seemed to share my confusion: what were they doing there? I thought the focus should have been on Princess.
Overall, I felt it was an involving and interesting story, interweaving the private family drama, itself shaped by colonialism and racism, and the political fightback. Mavis very movingly relates the experience of the Windrush generation of Caribbean people, drawn to the ‘Mother country’ to fill labour shortages, only to find themselves unwelcome and unable to find decent work. Margot, a largely sympathetic character, still manages to voice the casual racism that is ever-present. And the effect of racist standards of beauty on the lovely Princess is heart-breaking.
I had a couple of issues with the staging and casting. To have Margot, an ageing and self-deluded vamp, played by young and beautiful Jade Yourell was disorienting. I didn’t really catch onto her character until a scene late on in the play when we see her without her wig. She still looks beautiful, even in this state, but at least I realised what sort of character she was playing and could re-read her relationship with Mavis and the children in the light of that.
The adult actors playing the two ten-year old children, Princess (Kudzai Sitima) and Lorna (Emily Burnett) were extraordinarily believable. They had exactly the right energy and physical movements, while still maintaining the contrast between the exuberant Princess and the quieter more thoughtful Lorna.
I have become used to minimalist and abstract sets at Live Theatre, so the realistic ‘60s interior was quite a surprise. It did establish the period and domestic setting (although it gave more of a sense of affluence than I felt was appropriate for the story of a family struggling financially). And the curtains, echoing Mavis’ employment sewing curtains, which pervades the family’s life, were used to great effect in the beauty queen fantasy scenes.
But when the action moves to outside, it didn’t really work for me. For example, when we see Wendell leave his two daughters alone down the docks while he goes off betting, there is insufficient sense of jeopardy, which lessens the shock of his irresponsibility and makes Junior’s reaction seem pernickety rather than appropriately horrified.
And the community chorus, used to suggest the bus boycott and especially at the end as a pageant of black beauty, seemed a bit weak and disconnected to the main focus of the play. But that said, it really is worth going to see. I shed a tear at several key moments and was genuinely uplifted by the radio news report of the success of the bus boycott – the bit based on real history.
Runs until
Gerry Byrne
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