Portrait

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Reminiscent of Michaela Coel's energetic National Theatre play Chewing Gum Dreams, Portrait is a warming collection of female monologues, enlisted to shine lights on aspects of black feminine identity. The work is written and performed by Italia Conti graduate Racheal Ofori, whose characters lope from school leaver to pastor, 20-something jobber to insecure maid of honour keen on outshining her bride.

Ofori is both a brilliant writer and an accomplished actor. Resigned to a stage that is perhaps three metres wide, she is also an immensely talented dancer, shredding decades between scenes in moments, transporting dialogue from the church to the club in a flicker of a changing light. In such minimal confines as these, and with nearly nothing on stage—my guest notes how easy this show will be to tour!—Ofori concentrates on unravelling the nuances, the sensitivities, of sensible British women: the religious lady who needn't see another single mum ruined by a broken relationship; the lost teenager in counselling who doesn't fancy university, not for a "piece of paper that celebrates mediocrity".

Then there are the rhyming couplets dropped in a half-sung gaze. The best is the maid of honour, aware she's consumed by her own image, on a mission to "eat, but not gain weight, [be] toned, but not muscular – so as not to emasculate". It's a shame Ofori then closes her one-woman show by summing up her points in dry, loaded sentences; the characters do a better job. When her personae are left alone, on stage and in text, Ofori’s subtlety blends into itself. Her skits are a set of poignant and thoughtful vignettes about London life and culture, delightfully sewn together in movement and speech.