Misty – Bush Theatre

Arinze Kené in Misty by Arinze Kené at the Bush Theatre, London. Picture: Helen Murray

Misty continues at the Bush Theatre, London until 21 April 2018.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Fresh from his turn in Girl From the North Country’s original run at the Old Vic, Arinzé Kene comes hurtling into the Bush Theatre with his new play Misty.

Directed by Omar Elerian, Misty is essentially a one-man vehicle (save for turns by the band and a hilarious cameo by powerhouse Mya Napoleon) in which Kene weaves rap, soliloquy, direct address and beat poetry to create a metanarrative tapestry, splicing the devastating story of his friend Lucas and his own struggles during the three-year creative process.

Misty can’t accurately be described as a musical, but neither is it a play with music. It plays out like a concept album brought to life in front of your eyes, with Kene’s triple-threat training being incorporated to hugely impressive effect, effortlessly freestyling, moving with incredible precision and sending his head voice to the heavens.

The original songs and freestyles are as infectious as they are utterly complex, in both content and form, leaving you keen for the next musical breakdown. Pray for a recording.

Over the duration of the evening, Kene taps into the well established metaphor of a city being a living, breathing creature, and applies biological roles within that city to the people who populate it, coining terms such as ‘virus,’ ‘blood cell’ and ‘antiviral’ to startling effect.

His appropriation and reappropriation of his own crystal clear idiolect sows the seeds of a social epiphany that is carefully drip fed over the two-hour runtime.

Accompanying Kene on synth and drums respectively are Adrian McLeod and Shiloh Coke, flanking the actor stage left and right like sentinels. They slip from behind their instruments like phantoms to assume the roles of his ‘friends’ Raymond and Donna from an onstage soundbooth, leaving doubt-tinged messages on his voicemail.

During the first of many well-placed narrative breaks, they unceremoniously puncture the imagery Kene creates at the top of the play, of an altercation on the night bus between a ‘blood cell’ and Lucas (a ‘virus’) .

To them, it felt like the story of ‘another generic angry young black man’, and the cumulation of Arinzé’s efforts is nothing more than of having created a ‘n***a’ play.

From this point, (around five minutes in) Kene point-blank refuses to be pigeon-holed, deftly heading off languid criticisms at the pass. Labels like ‘urban’, ‘safari’ and ‘jungle’ are mocked and questioned with precision, dissected and returned to sender.

By the climax, Kene has you in thrall to him, his philosophy and the story he tells, having expertly avoided didacticism and held out a hand, inviting you to question the unquestionable, consider your own position and to be truly incensed at the state of society. ‘

Misty is a moment of pure theatrical catharsis and bears resounding political and social importance. As I attempted to express to Kene when I had the pleasure of meeting him post-show, my job in reviewing it has not been an easy one. Early on, his sister asserts that “too much cross examination can be destabilising to a piece of art”. And that’s exactly what this is.

Alex Chard