This Bitter Earth

This is a delightful 2-hander, with Omari Douglas and Alexander Lincoln, both actors who have a wealth of experience under their belts and this play shows just how fantastic they truly are. Lincoln is Neil the BLM activist whose strong morals guide him through life, he comes from privilege. Douglas plays black playwright Jesse whose anger at the world bubbles just below the surface, only coming out when truly pushed to the edge by their partner who struggles to understand their lack of motivation. Both bring their characters to life with chemistry, passion and delight. They are typical millennials, totally in love while the world seemingly burns around them.

This Bitter Earth marks the West End directorial debut of Billy Porter, and the majority of the choices made work wonderfully, the only moment that stands out as an unusual choice was to bring the 2 actors off the stage into the audience and have them move amongst the seats, it felt as though they wanted to make the piece immersive but weren’t sure how to do so. The story is told in a non-linear time line, which means we get a highlight reel of what is indicated is a years long partnership, though I do feel this could have been made clearer that we were jumping around their timeline rather than viewing consequential events.