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Review of Flash Festival: Black Females Theatre - Black Hearts Black Truths at the NN Contemporary

Black Hearts Black Truths starring Melissa Madden is not the best Flash play I have seen this week. However it perhaps takes its subject matter and burrows deeper than any other. It also totally educates in its brief period something that personally was unknown.

It was never an issue to me growing up about people being different. While the understanding of racism existed, it never occurred to me that there was the prospect of being too black as a further form of this. This was an education and enlightening in the extreme.

While watching the only thing that came to me was how Michael Jackson's appearance changed over the years and whether this was in the same mindset as this. However because of this play it stirs things in the mind to find and learn more. That is the credit of such a show, to challenge the brain, to learn things you may never have experienced before.

Melissa through her play creates substantial real people, some likable, some repulsive, all clearly defined. The final scene with the bleach is an incredibly tough scene to watch having learnt so much in so little time it comes the more devastating.

While I did wonder about actually whether I was going to appreciate this play from the lack of understanding the subject matter, I came away from it educated in something I truly had no knowledge about in the first place.



*
As a separate comment, I would say that this was the least appealing of the four locations of the festival. Ignoring the fact that the staircase takes you to a place where the air is thin, there are issues with the room itself with chairs all on one level much is lost by the rows further back. The chairs also were not the most pleasant. Therefore it is not a venue that I would desire to visit again in too much of a hurry.


The Flash Festival 2015 runs between 18th-23rd May, 2015 at four venues across the town. Details can be found at http://ftfevents.wix.com/flashtheatre2015, while tickets can be booked via the Royal & Derngate. Details at: http://www.royalandderngate.co.uk/whatson/2015-2016/Other/FlashFestival15

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