Staging the unsayable: debbie tucker green’s political theatre

debbie tucker green is one of the most stylistically innovative and politically engaged playwrights at work in Britain today. Her prolific output is widely recognised in discussions of contemporary black British theatre, where she is often named alongside Kwame Kwei-Armah and Roy Williams as the leading playwrights of their generation. Moreover, she has become a figurehead for new British playwriting more broadly, as evinced by her inclusion in Aleks Sierz’ Rewriting the Nation: British Theatre Today (2011). Yet this energetic acclaim was preceded by a period of critical questioning; early reviewers responded indignantly to her subversion of conventional plot structures, highly stylised use of language and assuredly sparse stage design. Many saw these features as a failure to fulfil the demands of the dramatic medium; some hesitated to use the term “play” to classify her work. One critic, receiving her drama as an aural rather than visual or embodied experience, claimed that she would “find a happier home on [BBC] Radio 3” (I. Johns). In another particularly piqued response, reviewer Dominic Cavendish parodied the demotic voice in which tucker green’s characters speak: “I don’t do silence, innit” (251). This invocation of silence – or, rather, its absence – is intriguing. Cavendish is right that tucker green’s plays are marked by chaotic dialogue: incessant repetition, overlap and interruption. Yet, amidst this proliferation of speech, much remains unsaid. This article examines tucker