A complex plot that depicts the world of street art, finds reviewer Gail Deal.
This play was commissioned by Theatre Centre and is a co-production between Theatre Centre and Sheffield Theatres. Dizzy premiered at the Tanya Moiseiwitsch Playhouse on 25 September 2024.
The cast is as follows: Qamar who is a 15-year-old Arab girl and a maths whizz; Staz/Sunny who is 33 years old and Yaseen/Dizzy who is an 18-year-old Arab male; Mr Kadinsky and, lastly, Security Guard.
The play requires some patience on the part of the audience as the relationships between characters are revealed slowly. Yaseen, who is also known as Dizzy, is Qamar's older brother but Stax calls him brother as well. Yaseen/Dizzy is dead, having fallen from – or been pushed off – a high building. Qamar makes Stax's acquaintance at the memorial wall set up for her late brother. She calls him a criminal for tagging the wall but once she realises that he was her brother's friend, she shows him respect by shaking his hand. The scene ends with Staz saying: ‘Rest in paint, Diz’.
The play offers an insight into the world of street art where artists risk their lives to create ‘burners’ in places which are hard to reach. Stax has a plan to go up the Eastway Tower and Qamar wants to go to and leave a tag for Yaseen, who we discover in one of the ‘Axis’ scenes, painting a burner, ‘like this proper mad mix of orange, red and green. A shooting star. Or a fiery asteroid.’ The language is rich in graffiti jargon, slang and poetry. The mix of past, present and future, marked by ‘(an echo)’ in the stage directions, aids the fantasy of the Axis.
Stax had a son, Cal, who died. Stax's friend Redeem took Stax to a side alley of a tunnel and told him to close his eyes and think of his son. Somehow, Stax could reach his son and he wants to help Qamar reach Yaseem, so he takes her to the Axis and she hears her late brother's voice. In some way, this helps her to deal with the grief and offers her some comfort.
The play is full of quick, snappy dialogue but towards the end Stax has a monologue in which he explains how Dizzy saved his life. The ending is one of friendship and solidarity reached through loss and street art.