Why has the National put this flimsy fake-news drama on its biggest stage?
Though first seen in New York in 2003, American playwright Tracey Scott Wilson's The Story retains a nominal newsy value: it's about obtaining accurate reporting amid a madly pressurised media environment and the issues facing black journalists in a white-dominated industry. On paper, then, it's a timely parable for our post-truth age, and Clint Dyer 's UK premiere production energetically argues its case. Even so, it looks overexposed on the National Theatre's Olivier main-stage, and overblown too.
Wilson was partly inspired by a notorious case from pre-digital, pre-DEI days: that of Janet Cooke, an African-American journalist who won a Pulitzer in 1981 for a Washington Post article found to be fabricated (she had to return the prize). Even if you didn't know that, you might well have growing suspicions about the scoop that comes the way of the new kid on the block at a rival to "the Post " . The highly ambitious Yvonne ( Black Panther star Letitia Wright), who disdains affirmative filler-copy, tries to find out who shot a white teacher in a rough black neighbourhood. The plot thickens and twists as she tracks down and seemingly befriends Aliyah Odoffin's Latisha, a young, intelligent black woman much like herself, who lifts the lid on girl gangs.
Aliyah Odoffin plays Latisha, a young intelligent black woman who lifts the lid on girl gangs - Feruza Afewerki
The evening has a rare page-turning quality: the action, played out surreally on a community hall basketball court, zips from scene to scene, jump-cutting between conversations; Dyer animates all this brilliantly. We're swiftly hooked – and hoodwinked – as the boundaries blur between what's real and what's imagined.
The sense that we're in a world of smoke and mirrors is beguiling and intellectually pointed; what falls by the wayside, though, is the detail that would flesh out the characters and their milieu. After some droll, loaded exchanges, in which Yvonne's battle-hardened superior Pat (an imposing Lorraine Toussaint) fills her in on the paper's history ("a pro-slavery rag") – albeit she's had prior steers from her lordly white boyfriend, who is high up there – the narrative tricksiness takes up a lot of the script.
Yvonne's battle-hardened superior, Pat, is played by an imposing Lorraine Toussaint (right) - Feruza Afewerki
I just wanted more on the daily dynamics of an American paper and its complex racial politics; as her story unravels, the organisation is caught in a fascinating bind, but that's under-explored. Later, we hurtle from personal identity crisis to societal breakdown – which feels like an editorialising step too far. I can't fault the company's collective verve or commitment and, overall, this feels like a valid statement of inclusive intent by the National's new artistic director, Indhu Rubasingham . But, amid the zig-zagging story telling, the drama itself goes missing.
Until Oct 24. Tickets: nationaltheatre.org.uk
