REVIEW - To Be You: a play about shedding identity

Underneath a quirky looking bar off Lower Marsh, Waterloo lies The Glitch, a venue that transforms into a creative space and theatre. It was my first ever visit (despite the fact I'm convinced I’ve been to every theatre in London), for the Press Night of ‘To Be You’, a one-woman play written by Esohe Uwadiae.

Uwadiae’s previous work has featured at theatres including Almeida, Pleasance and Duke of York’s.Her debut play ‘SHE IS A PLACE CALLED HOME’ was showcased at VAULT FESTIVAL in 2020. I am always excited when I see the work of a new writer - the possibilities of creativity are endless, and there are so many more stories to be told. 

‘To Be You’ follows Osuyi, as she walks us through her personal experience of being Black whilst growing up in Essex, which up until recent years was seen as an area with little racial diversity. 

Performer Efé Agwele does an incredible job of playing Osuyi, who does everything in her power to assimilate, as well as playing her bi-racial friend who wanted to shed every part of her identity to become someone new. 

Though the characters are completely different, their stories are parallel, in a sense that the adolescent pressure to be accepted can easily influence you to mold yourself into someone that is so far from your core being. 

The content of this play shows how multi-faceted the Black Girl Experience can be. , Some incidences demonstrated on stage hit very close to home and almost felt like I was reliving my own past experiences; such as not being invited to ‘cool people’ events, the way non-Black teachers and peers appear committed to mispronouncing your ethnic name, or even not being desirable compared to your fairer skinned counterparts. Other parts, though, were distant from my own personal experiences, such as the desire to bleach my skin due to disliking my complexion. This brought home the reflection that growing up as an inner-city girl was a blessing not everyone was able to experience. Our trauma expands far and wider than meets the eye oftentimes.  

Even though the production was overall melancholic in tone, Uwadiae’s ability to strategically position comic relief and lightness throughout the play helped ease the heaviness that Black people often leave these spaces feeling after watching traumatic and ancestral experiences displayed in front of them. I walked out with a new found assurance of self, as well as hope for future little Black girls to feel protected in their experiences growing-up.

One of the final lines that was said by Osuyi perfectly embodied the important themes of the play and simultaneously soothed my younger self: “Everything you are is enough, it has always been enough”.

This is a production for the Black girls who were made to feel like they weren’t “Black enough”, for those that were perceived as “too Black” in certain environments, and for those who never felt like they understood the lived experience of many Black girls growing up in the UK. 

To Be You runs at The Glitch until 24 August.