Retrograde: the play about Sidney Poitier feels "disturbingly prescient"

Written by Ryan Calais Cameron, Retrograde is a play about Sidney Poitier that's not about the Sidney Poitier who is known and revered for being the silver screen's first trailblazing matinee idol.

That Poitier was an actor and an activist in a dapper suit who rose to fame in the 60s in the likes of To Sir, with Love, In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

But the Poitier in the play is a principled young man at the start of his career in the 50s, who saunters into the office of studio lawyer Larry Parks expecting that the signing on for a script for a TV movie by his liberal writer friend Bobby is a done deal.

Two actors either side of the desk looking intently — Image credit: Marc Brenner

Far from it. The liquor-swilling lawyer's casual racism becomes more pointed with each drink he downs and he begins to badger the promising actor into throwing fellow black performer Paul Robeson under the wheels of the Communist witch hunt bus.

It all takes place across a taut, tense 90 minutes in an educational and vital piece of storytelling which is slyly funny and which keeps its anger on a slow simmer before an explosive big finish. The writer - whose For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy was an equally stirring highlight of the 2023-2024 theatregoing season - has fashioned a play that's full of whip-smart dialogue and, in its final third, almost unbearable tension.

Director Amit Sharma (who was also at the helm when Retrograde premiered at the Kiln Theatre a couple of years ago) keeps things moving at a cracking pace. And both the writer and director are served by a dream cast who deserve every award going.

Two actors on stage around the desk in an office — Image credit: Marc Brenner

Stanley Townsend is a gruffly intimidating Parks, in sharp contrast to Oliver Johnstone's nervy and hyper "skinny little beatnik" Bobby. And Ivanno Jeremiah has the commanding presence that made Poitier a star.

There's not much of a physical resemblance but the voice is just right, as is the air of barely-contained frustration in such lines as "I am tired of living my life to make white people happy".

Visually, the show is firmly set in the past, with Frankie Bradshaw's retro-styled office setting, Amy Mae's bright lighting and Isobel Pellow's spiffy costumes evocative of 50s New York on one hot and sweaty afternoon. But as it asks what it means to be un-American, Retrograde feels disturbingly prescient.

Retrograde is at the Apollo Theatre, London, until 14 June.