Roots review, Donmar Warehouse

The first hurdle to be cleared in Arnold Wesker's kitchen sink drama, Roots, is that it's set in deepest Norfolk. This leads to an otherwise stupendous cast struggling with the flat vowels of the region and constantly tipping into transatlantic and cockney word endings. This aural collage takes some getting used to. Thankfully, there is plenty of opportunity in a first act that is entirely spent on domestic drudgery - eating dinner, folding clothes, sweeping floors - as our heroine, Beatie Bryant, berates her sister and the farm folk that comprise her family, for their lack of intellectual curiosity.

Meaty Beatie Prig and Flouncy

Beatie has been transformed by love into a budding intellectual. Jumping on chairs, she excitedly performs her London boyfriend's socialist soliloquies. Scornful of her family's closed lives, lack of culture, and fear of their masters, she bristles with proselytising joy. And that's the second hurdle. It's a bit dull and a lot cruel. As we go into the second act, Beatie turns on her hard working mother. Reliant on a husband whose only power in life is denying her money, Mrs Bryant spends her days cooking and cleaning, marking time by the arrival of the bus and the postman's knock. Cue another round of endless domestic drudgery on a whizzy set with running taps and a well. The minutiae of impoverished rural living is well drawn and like Mrs B, we too start to flag. Where in this is the time - or inclination - for the high art and joy that Beatie wants to discuss?

Beatie rails against her family's lack of knowledge and openness. In the third act, as all the members of the Bryant family gather to meet her boyfriend, Ronnie, he ditches her. He writes, saying she has failed to thrive under his tutelage. Distressed, Beatie turns cruelly on her mother, and is stunned when her mother responds with savage clarity. Both women have finally found their voices... Jessica Raine and Linda Bassett are on cracking form as Beatie and her mother, but cannot sufficiently join the dots in a script so heavy with meaning, it means everything and nothing. In this production, anyway.

In conclusion: Roots is the sequel to Chicken Soup With Barley which was brilliantly staged at the Royal Court in 2011, but lacks its drama and pathos. The slow burn reminded me of the National's tedious The Kitchen, which only caught fire in the second half. Wesker clearly needs careful handling and director, James Macdonald has struggled with the pacing.

References

Donmar Warehouse, Tickets

Donmar Warehouse, 42 Earlham Street, London WC2H 9LX.  Run ends 30 November.