Don’t Smoke In Bed - Finborough Theatre
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
FOLLOWING the success of last year’s production of Obama-ology, multi-award-winning African-American playwright Aurin Squire returns to the Finborough Theatre with another world premiere – Don’t Smoke In Bed, which plays Sunday and Monday evening and Tuesday matinees from March 6 to March 22, 2016.
You know I saw an article in Time Magazine a few years ago that stated ‘Asian Men are In,’ and it had a picture of a white woman riding the back of an Asian man. No Kidding. Like he was some kind of human rickshaw. Maybe you should take a picture of Sheryl riding me with a blunt in her mouth an’ a dreadlock wig.
Jamaican-American Richard and White-American Sheryl are starting a family together. When they agree to a series of ‘bedroom interviews’, they believe that their interracial relationship is the focus of the article. As both play up to what they believe are the expectations of the interviewer, they embark on a journey that challenges their relationship to the core as the barriers between psychological and social, sexual and political, public and private, melt and dissolve…
Don’t Smoke In Bed is described as a stunning exploration of social and racial perception in contemporary America.
Aurin Squire’s other plays include A Family Manual for Kwanzaa (The Kennedy Center MFA Workshop), The Great Black Sambo Machine (Lincoln Centre Lab and Ars Nova), Defacing Michael Jackson (Nuyorican Poets Café workshop and winner of Lincoln Center’s Act One Prize), To Whom It May Concern (Abingdon Theatre and ArcLight Theatre productions) and African Americana (Brooklyn Arts Exchange and Theatre 503).
Presented by Plane Paper Theatre Company in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre, Don’t Smoke In Bed is directed by Andrew Twyman (Te Karakia as part of Vibrant 2015 – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights, Finborough Theatre), and designed by Emily Sion, with lighting by Matt Edwards.
Also at the Finborough Theatre: the London premiere of award-winning playwright Alexandra Wood’s startling new play, Merit ( March 1 to March 26, 2016).