Rachel De-lahay: ‘Being a brown woman is political in itself’

The British playwright on changing ‘normal’, holding an audience and getting white people to give a damn

Rachel De-lahay, 33, has made her name with award-winning plays on subjects as diverse as immigration, national identity, carnival and Birmingham seen from the top of a bus. She has contributed the play My White Best Friend to the Bush theatre’s Black Lives, Black Words – a series of commissioned pieces that ask: do black lives matter today?

Do you think of yourself as a political playwright?
You know what? I never did. I always wanted to tell stories. I’m arrogant enough to think that if I enjoy my stories, other people will. But I have learned that being a brown woman is political in itself.

Do you feel press-ganged into writing about black issues?
I’m not a black playwright, I’m mixed-race – brown. I got taught to tell the stories I can tell best. I couldn’t write a story about the history of Rwanda, I couldn’t tell every black story. I like to think my stories are nuanced because my world is multi-cultural. But I like seeing people who look like me on stage. I’ve written two short plays which were played at the Royal Court by white actors. I would have cast black actors just because black actors do not have enough parts. We need to change people’s mindset. It is like Noma [Dumezweni] being cast as the grown-up Hermione in Harry Potter. My sister is a massive Potter fan. When she read the book, she was sure Hermione looked like me and her. You read whatever is your normal. Lots of little white girls will say: “I thought Hermione looked like me.” We have to change the idea of normal.

Why is theatre a good medium for commentary?
It is intimate. Cinema and theatre are the only spaces where you enter a dark room, switch off your phone and listen. I still watch TV with my iPhone in my hand. I am multitasking constantly but, in the theatre, the phone goes on silent and into my bag and I listen. It’s really hard nowadays to get that level of concentration. If you can hold an audience for 90 minutes, you can change people.

How did My White Best Friend come about?
I was in Soho the night after the Orlando nightclub shooting and there was a big LGBT march and I found myself joining in. But I realised it was only because I happened to be in Soho that I was there. I asked myself: why didn’t I choose to come here? What the hell does that say about me that I let my gay friends do this on their own? It made me question everything about what it means to fight for other people. I have a strong circle of smart, well-educated friends who want to make the world a better place. But I was interested in how sometimes these brilliant people who I love and love me do not necessarily fight for my rights.

Audiences will be promenading at the Bush – how will that fit with your piece?
I’m going to organise the audience with brown, disabled and queer people to the front. I want white able-bodied men right at the back. It is saying: we get it, we know what is going on in the world. If you are a white able man you might go: “Oh – but my wife gets to move forward…?” Yeah! That is how it feels!

You grew up in Birmingham – is it still home?
I’ve lived in London for a decade but my mother – who is a nurse and brilliant – and my sister still live in Birmingham. When I go back there, something resets and relaxes.

You trained with the National Youth Theatre and Lamda. Is acting a useful apprenticeship for a playwright?
Acting is the only route I know. Having been a performer helps with dialogue. I write in character and read aloud in my mind. I also did the Royal Court’s Unheard Voices programme. We went back to basics. What is conflict? What is drama? Mike Bartlett, then on his second play, was buzzing… and shared his journey. Without the Royal Court, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

Do you want to go on acting?
I really like creative control. Being an actress feels unempowering. I’ve so many friends who are brilliant actresses but not working at the same level as the boys. It’s heartbreaking and has nothing to do with talent. I like the safety writing gives me. It doesn’t put me in the position of being constantly told “No”. But I still call myself an actress and if I wrote myself a part, I’d play it.

In the play you say: ‘How do you ask your white best friend to try and visibly give a damn?’ What’s the answer?
It became a dialogue with my friends of colour. We’d have nights with a bunch of artists, actors, people in TV who are so successful, they make me look like a meandering fool. It’s a tiny bit harder being a person of colour in this world. We meet to support each other. It’s hard to talk about race in this country. There’s something scary about it. Jane Elliott, the American anti-racism activist, does a brilliant one-liner where she says: “Put your hand up if you’d change colour to become a black person.” No one does. She concludes: “This says everything. You know what’s going on and that it is not right. You should make it stop.” Inequality is in every country. Go to the east and people are still praising white over black.

You’ve done some innovative work – such as The Last Hours of Laura K, the Bafta-nominated 24-hour murder mystery for the BBC which could be solved via social media.
It is definitely a way forward. I’ve been listening to The Receipts podcast, which is for black girls in south London. It’s such fun. They talk frankly and one girl, talking about infidelity, says: “Give me two minutes on an iPhone and I can tell you everything your partner is doing.” I love that honesty. Two minutes, an internet connection – she can work it out.

If there was one thing you’d like to change about the way white people see black people?
I am going to try and say this and hope what I mean comes across. I don’t know if it will. I wish my friends, and even members of family, would stop thinking they were normal and everyone else other… I wish I had a brilliant, savvy sentence to sum it up. I don’t – which is why I write.

My White Best Friend is part of Black Lives, Black Words at the Bush theatre, London W12, from 23-25 March

Contributor

Interview by Kate Kellaway

The GuardianTramp

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