Fairview, Young Vic

After winning the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for drama, the Susan Blackburn Prize for female playwrights and a series of jubilant reviews in New York, Fairview comes to London.

Jackie Sibblies Drury's 2018 play challenges preconceptions. The Pulitzer Prize committee described it as 'a hard-hitting drama that examines race in a highly conceptual, layered structure, ultimately bringing audiences into the actors' community to face deep-seated prejudices', while The New York Times enthused about 'a glorious, scary reminder of the unmatched power of live theatre to rattle, roil and shake us wide awake.'

The play follows the Frasier family as they gather to celebrate Grandma's birthday. At first, the minor stresses and distractions feel like any domestic drama. But then Drury's sly writing breaks the forth wall and uses meta-theatre to interrogate our ideas about race. Soon the actions and concerts of the black family start to get sidelined by white voices.

The arch depiction of racial politics and the bombastic structure have provoked comparisons with Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (An Octoroon, Appropriate), but Drury feels radical in her own distinctive way, too.

If the buzz from New York is to be believed, Fairview is set to be a powerful, thought-provoking addition to the Young Vic season.

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