Last Updated on October 9, 2025
… Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy
For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy has opened at the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs at the Royal Court Theatre hot on the heels of its sell-out premiere at the New Diorama Theatre in 2021. Written and directed by Ryan Calais Cameron, the play blends storytelling, verse, movement, and music, and follows the course of six young Black men who meet up for group therapy. Co-produced by New Diorama Theatre and Nouveau Riche, this is one of very few plays in the 66-year history of the Royal Court Theatre to transfer directly from an Off-West End theatre.
Therapy sessions, which are a very private space, are having a moment on the London stage this year. Animal Kingdom at Hampstead Downstairs focused on family therapy with For Black Boys taking the form of group therapy. It was inspired by For Coloured Girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf written by Ntozake Shange which premiered in 1976 in the US and weaved poetic monologues with dance and music. Shange called this form of theatre a ‘choreopoem.
Playwright Ryan Calais Cameron is an award-winning playwright, actor and theatre-maker. He has enjoyed sell-out success in Edinburgh, won The Stage Edinburgh Fringe Award and is the artistic director of Nouveau Riche, an award-winning production company. For Black Boys was developed out of workshops during which men discussed their experiences of mental health and emotional wellbeing. It combines dialogue, movement and music while it tracks the group therapy attended by six men and examines what role the stresses and pressures experienced by Black men play in increasing suicide risk. For Black Boys conveys a positive message which is that self-love leads to love for one another and has a profound effect on emotional wellbeing. ‘I found a king in me and now I love you/ I found a king in you and now I love me’.
The six characters in the play slowly reveal what has brought them into a group therapy setting with their past traumas relating back to childhood experiences that have been contributing factors underlying their depression. Their names are each a different shade of Black. Obsidian ((Aruna Jalloh), Sable (Darragh Hand), Pitch (Emmanuel Akwafo), Onyx (Mark Akintimehim), Midnight (Kaine Lawrence) and Jet (Nnabiko Ejimofor) explore their relationships with their fathers, abuse, sexual abuse, Black history, women, societal expectations, rejection, growing up and trying to fit in, feeling that they are not Black enough to live up to societal expectations, toxic masculinity and being gay. Each one of the excellent ensemble cast puts in a thrilling performance. The stage is set simply – 6 chairs in the first half, scaffolding in the second. But the ingenious use of colour and the excellent lighting design (Rory Beaton) brings dynamism to the stage.
For Black Boys is a high octane play with an outstanding cast who dance, sing, recite, emote, strut and weep. While much of the music and the songs were beyond my middle-aged ken, many audience members were singing along and dancing in their seats. What was accessible to everyone, though, was the emotional pain, so raw, so undiluted, it felt as if the words were being uttered for the very first time. As the play developed, the characters’ bravado and humour gave way as they got to know one another and trust built. This is true of all group therapy, where strangers meet and bear witness to the pain of others, finding bonds and shared experiences of a hostile world both external and internal. As the masks slip and are put aside, the real trauma and pain are revealed of being a young Black man in a society in which racism is endemic and expectations both negative and positive are often constricting and are deleterious to mental health. Franz Fanon explored these experiences in his seminal works in the 1950s when he wrote about how the experience of racism affects the human psyche. Writer and co-director, Ryan Calais Cameron writes in the introduction that ‘the underlying issue is that Black males are voiceless and invisible, groomed not to ever show their emotions, groomed into a vision of hyper-masculinity heightened by the media but more so by their own environment’. He goes on to hope that his play will encourage Black young men to find themselves, to find the redeeming force of the king inside themselves and one another. Then to discover themselves and try to rise above societal expectations.
In decades of theatre-going, I have never before experienced such a rapturous response from an audience. It felt as if something new and very important had been articulated. I arrived for the performance to review a play the content of which was unfamiliar to me. As one of the actors says in a video about the play, Black men do not often see themselves represented on stage. I had been invited into a world I do not inhabit and where a level of pain and hidden vulnerability is all too real. It was a privilege to be a member of the audience. I hope that For Black Boys goes on to an even larger stage.
For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy is on at the Royal Court Theatre until 30 April.
Royal Court Theatre
Sloane Square
London
SW1W 8AS
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