Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White review

Written in 1966, at a time of increasing militancy within the American civil rights movement, Alice Childress’ tender, tragic drama depicts the struggle of Black women to live with dignity in the face of relentless injustice. This elegant revival, directed by Monique Touko – returning to the Lyric after helming the exuberant School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play last year – has a lush, feverish intensity. Characters stretch and fan themselves in the sweltering South Carolina sun; water is handed around like a precious commodity. But the real heat comes from the racial tensions boiling over within the segregated, economically disadvantaged community.

Set in 1918, the story centres on Deborah Ayorinde’s poised, proud, desperately lonely Julia, a Black woman in a long-term relationship with white baker Herman – played with appealingly gruff charm by David Walmsley. Herman struggles to make ends meet, conflicted between openly declaring his love and the legal necessity of keeping the relationship secret. The long shadows of worldwide war, slavery and a coming Spanish flu pandemic hang over them, but their interactions are marked by warmth, humour, gentleness and genuine joyfulness.

The play’s second half contains some ferocious confrontations, most brutally between Julia and Herman’s virulently racist mother. Geraldine Alexander plays the part with nervy fragility, her affected manners quickly shattering to reveal the ignorant bigot beneath. Elsewhere, Bethan Mary-James is strong as feisty but naive Mattie, pining for her husband serving in the navy, and Lachele Carl’s prim Fanny, whose internalised shame leads her to adopt the social pretensions – and undisguised prejudices – of the wealthy white folks she envies.

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