No Child...

Nilaja Sun spent six years as a teaching artist in the Bronx . Her students must surely have been the luckiest in New York.In this show – seen by many thousands across America – she is centrally a teacher creating a performance of a complex and moving play which involves imprisonment, conflict with authority, cruelty and much else – things that will resonate with the kids; and the play gives her some good quotes. She is creating this play with the most difficult class around, and - she plays the parts of all these students as they react to her, as well as playing other teachers, the disabled janitor, parents – you get the idea. And she does this brilliantly, moving between very different characters in a flash.Don’t think, 'Oh, dear – yet another one person show.' Here the stage seems really to be populated by a wide range of characters, who are fixed in seconds by Sun’s impressive skill. We see the gradual effects this teacher has, and the setbacks that she faces in her exhausting task. (No school production is easy to bring off. And this was clearly the most difficult of productions).Nothing puts this teacher off and she keeps at it. The controversial American, 'No Child Left Behind' Act is behind the thinking in this play. Not only the resourcefulness of this teacher but the resourcefulness of Nilaja Sun in portraying such an array of characters presented here is to be admired. The recounting of the future successes of the students at the close was something I wondered about. Did we need so much detail? Was this too much optimism? However, Sun warmly deserved the partial standing ovation she received at the performance I saw. See this and be inspired!