It gives me no pleasure to say that my time attending this show was a sensory disappointment. This disabled reviewer was (perhaps uniquely) struggling with over (and under) stimulation.

Our Afeni (embodied by a deep-skinned actor) performed against an all-black curtain, while only donning black/dark grey under a lighting design that lacked much brightness. It was dim most of the time. To make matters more challenging, the venue’s air conditioning unit was left on in the room during the performance, and the machinery buzzed distractingly in conflict with our soft-spoken performer. Her vocal quality was head-dominant, so I really struggled to follow her text against the industrial drone right behind me. I found my attention waning in the absence of a popping presence.

It also seemed like our performer was struggling to remember her lines at a few points along the way, but she did manage to keep the train on the tracks for the duration of the show. (Perhaps a few more reps with this new script will help everything drop into effortlessness.)

I wish my experience had been different at this show and that I’d planned to arrive a little earlier to land a front row seat. The first 3-4 rows did give this performance a standing ovation, and it seems that Afeni made a real impact for those attendees in closer proximity.

All said and done, I am heartened to see majority-white audiences respond enthusiastically to a Black performer telling an unapologetic story about this specific Black experience. It is important (now more than ever) that everyone takes some time to support Black art - and Black performers - at the Fringe. (And beyond).