JADAR

★★★★☆

Black is the Colour of my Voice is a one-woman show, inspired by the life of Nina Simone, written and performed by Apphia Campbell. Enjoying rave reviews in the USA, it has landed across the pond and has had a similar impact with UK audiences.

A sparse set greets us, a bed and rug to the centre, a desk and chair to the left, and a sole chair towards the front-right of the audience.

Nina, or Eunice as her family names her and we understand her, walks in, talking to her Daddy. Her father is an unseen; ghostly, spiritual character who she laments to, cries with, reveals and shares herself with him and us the audience. We become, by extension a ghostly, rather than spiritual presence with Nina embodying life.

Campbell, as Eunice, utilises Nina Simone’s father as an interesting character, whom she forumlates her ideas of a love and music from and seems to constantly look for aspects of her father in other people and in her music.

The story of the show recounts her earliest days, back to the age of 3! We see how her prodigious talent was recognised by her mother and the community creating funding for her to attend schools which would enable her talent further. We see her fall in love with her first love, and be broken by that love too.

Above all, we see how music is taught to her as good or bad – good meaning for God and bad meaning for the world – and how Nina wrestled with this binary and tried to break free from it.

Her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement is another major thread of the show, showing her songs as responses to brutality and injustice in contrast to her parents and community. This part reminded me how some older people in Pakistani communities who can sometimes be colour-blind and disbelieve in this form of discrimination, even saying as was said in the play, “If God wanted to get rid of this [racism], God would. It’s not up to us to enable that change”.

Eunice’s reaction to that sentiment was to create more agency, which I really respected. If thinking about this play outside of the glory and complexity of Nina Simone, it is a beautiful story of a woman wrestling with racism and sexism and using her literal voice to create her purpose.

To drive away those who saw her as less and to express herself, a musicality in her which she never wanted diminishing. Nina Simone’s songs, such as ‘Mississippi Goddam’ and the iconic ‘Feeling Good’ among others, were beautifully sung by Campbell.

Campbell ‘s voice is wonderful. The stage was sparse, Eunice’s voice, to be known as Nina, be central onstage, as a character and a legend.

Black is the Color of My Voice has now finished its run at Home, Manchester but you can catch it on tour around the UK.

Photo: Peter Dibdin