"Actor and playwright Chadwick Boseman is internationally known for his 2018 role in Marvel's Black Panther blockbuster. Boseman died in 2020, two months before George Floyd was suffocated by Derek Chauvin, a Minnesotan police officer, sparking the global Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. While Boseman's play, Deep Azure, was written over a decade before Floyd's murder, it speaks loudly to a post-BLM world in which ICE agents patrol US cities, normalising racialised violence."
"Deep, played by Jayden Elijah ( Saint X), is a student, wise beyond his years, set on joining a seminary, who's suddenly killed by a policeman. Torn apart by the tragedy, Azure - Deep's partner - and Roshad and Tone, his closest friends, are thrown onto individual trajectories of mourning, confusion and anger. Azure (Selina Jones - KAOS) spirals further into an eating disorder, an outlet for her guilt, love and self-destruction, reading Deep's notebooks, raging at establishment failings."
Deep Azure is a verse drama inspired by the 2000 police killing of Prince Jones and echoes more recent racialised violence and the post-BLM landscape. The production makes a UK debut at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and blends hip-hop rhythms with sharp, rhythmical dialogue. The story follows Deep, a seminary-bound student unexpectedly killed by a policeman, and the fallout for his partner Azure and friends Roshad and Tone. Azure descends into an eating disorder while poring over Deep's notebooks; Roshad channels grief into local protests and revenge; Tone, a police agent, urges faith in the justice system. Deep returns as an apparition, reliving memories and the night of his murder, while the play stages alarming violence and shocking twists.
Read at London Unattached
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