In Search of a White Identity
On Demand Theatre Season, The Actors Centre
Friday 27th November – Sunday 6th December 2020
New digital show In Search of a White Identity interrogates race, class and masculinity as part of the new season of on demand theatre from The Actors Centre. Patrick and Mickey grew up together, but now find themselves on opposing sides. Detained in the same police cell having been arrested at the same protest, two men are forced to face the complexity of their upbringing.
This powerful new production addresses urgent and timely issues as Patrick and Mickey try to learn to understand each other. Directed by Victoria Evaristo (WMV, WOW Festival Southbank; Extract, Soho Theatre), In Search of a White Identity introduces writer performer Cliffordkuju Henry (Top Boy; Dizzee Rascal’s Money Right) as Patrick and Drew Edwards (The Trial of Christine Keeler; Suffragette) as Mickey.
Originally part of The Actors Centre’s Working Class Season curated by Actor Awareness in 2019, the piece has been re-envisioned in the light of 2020, and casts a prophetic eye over the urgent matters of today.
Writer and performer, Cliffordkuju Henry comments, I’m truly looking forward to presenting this piece. The play explores working-class identity, as well as race and masculinity. I’ve tried to go beyond the political dynamics that have fuelled division, and to find the humanity within these characters – a vocabulary for what they have experienced.
Mitchell Reeve, Theatre Programme Manager at The Actors Centre added, We were all hugely impressed with Cliffordkuju’s script during our Working Class Season, and are incredibly excited for this crucial and pertinent play to reach wider audiences through The Actor’s Centre’s ‘On Demand’ programme. It is a piece that works on many different levels, and in today’s political climate its message of unity and commonality against the odds is a powerful and vital one