Separate entrances to theaters and events, separate toilets and amenities, separate schools. Whites and blacks were once forbidden to coexist, even in the basics of everyday life. To ensure this there were signs with the word “colored” where this was deemed necessary.

That time is not so far away, as the legal framework for the principle of equal individual and social rights was implemented only in the 60s. The murder of George Floyd happened only in 2020, bringing the “Black Lives Matter” movement into the spotlight. But what happens when segregationist practices come from the opposite side? We come to the reactions of today and to the West End of London, one of the most famous theater neighborhoods in the world.

Slave Play, the “apple of strife”

The news of at least two performances that will host only “black audiences” also known as “black outs” flooded the British media today. The play “Slave Play” and the American playwright of the play, Jeremy O. Harris, appear as the “apple of strife”.

Playwright Jeremy O. Harris Photo: Christopher Smith/Invision/AP/Photoshot/picture alliance

He himself is the initiator of these “racially homogenous” performances, starting on September 18, 2019. On that day, the 804 seats of the Broadway Golden Theater in New York were filled with an audience “identifying as black”, as stated on the official page of the “blackout” phenomenon.

The play concerns three interracial couples who undergo sexual therapy that requires them to play the role of slave and master. It is a reference to the history of slavery in the US, but also to the relations between different races, the power relations and the traumas caused.

The play was nominated for 12 Tony Awards—a historic first for a non-musical play—though it did not receive any awards. Of course, from the beginning when it was uploaded, it became a field of controversy, because of its content, but also because of the decision of its creator to attract only the black audience.

Reactions to this initiative

The official website for ‘Slave Play’, which will be staged at the Noel Coward Theater in the West End from 29 June to 21 September, explains that ‘these evenings are held to create an environment in which audiences identified as black, can experience and discuss an event in places of art, cinema, sports and cultural centers in general, without white people staring at them…”

The project’s creator, Jeremy O. Harris, speaking to the BBC, said that “one of the things we have to remember is that people have to be invited en masse into a space to feel that they belong, and in most spaces in the West the poor and black people have repeatedly heard that they don’t belong in the theater.”

Jeremy O. Harris has stated, among other things: “Let’s not pretend we don’t know how white and black audiences respond differently to situations” saying for example that African-American audiences can be considered more “noisy” as opposed to white an audience that has decided to “sit still and respond politely to what it sees before it.”

London mayoral candidate Amy Gallagher, from the Social Democratic Party (SDP), emphasized that “excluding someone based on whatever color they have on their skin is certainly racist.” “It’s a shallow and racist approach in general. In London we have a huge Asian and multiracial community. Will they be encouraged or discouraged to see the work?”, he characteristically added.

It is pointed out that similar “black out night” practices have taken place again in London in 2023, specifically at the Royal Stratford East theater, in the satirical play Tambo & Bones. At the time MPs, mainly from the Conservative Party, commented on it as “misguided” and “disgusting”.