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A CurtainUp London London Review
American Trade


I've has enough "Yes We Can" to know when I'm being set up. — Valentina
I thought Tarell Alvin McCraney's play The Brothers Size was one of the best I saw that year with its sensitive portrayal of the relationship between two brothers. I wish I could say the same for American Trade. Set in the world of drugs and modelling it is an exposition of trashy culture in London and New York which did not make me laugh and left me questioning what the Royal Shakespeare Company were trying to achieve.

Written as a response to the kind of Restoration comedy which features the bed hopping of aristocratic rakes American Trade serves to expose the shallow inadequacy of the genre for anything other than weak sexual titillation. Indeed the prospect of seeing Geoffrey Freshwater as Lord Fairway in a turquoise posing pouch is not one designed to draw in the aesthetic loving crowds of Swiss Cottage.

The actors do their best: Tunji Kasim looks very attractive as Pharus the hustler from the United States who comes over to London to escape crime boss Jules (Clarence Smith) and his henchman Loni (David Carr). Debbie Korley pops up all over the place as Girl Wonder and as the hectoring, dominatrix air stewardess whose job it is to stop passengers gaining membership of the mile high club. Veteran RSC actor Sheila Reid is Pharus' Great Aunt Marian in London whose business interests are euphemistically called modelling. I did like Dharmesh Patel's Ragiv, Asian wheeler dealer who falls foul of British immigration or the UK Border Agency which the author amusingly calls Border Patrol!

The design is Manga comic book style and the costumes are bright, colourful, risqué and often dispensed with. Lighting too is bright and extreme. At one point Simone Saunders as Sylvia appears in an outfit which makes her look like a giant bee - it is a spectacular costume but other than reminding us what celebrities will do for publicity, loses its sting.

Thankfully this play has a very, very short run and is best forgotten.

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American Trade
By Tarell Alvin McCraney
Directed by Jamie Lloyd

With: Adam Burton, David Carr, Geoffrey Freshwater, Gruffudd Glyn, Tunji Kasim, Debbie Korley, Dharmesh PaTEL, Sheila Reid, David Rubin, Sophie Russell, Simone Saunders, Clarence Smith, James Traherne, James Tucker, Larrington Walker, Kirsty Woodward, Hannah Young, Samantha Young
Design: Soutra Gilmour
Lighting: Neil Austin
Music and Sound: Ben and Max Ringham
Movement: Ann Yee
Running time: One hour 30 minutes without an interval
Box Office: 020 7722 9301
Booking to 18th June 2011
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge based on 18th May 2011 performance at Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, London NW3 3EU (Tube: Swiss Cottage)

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©Copyright 2011, Elyse Sommer.
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