Caroline, or Change

I went to see Caroline, or Change with no idea what to expect, despite knowing that it was a revival of an enormously successful Chichester Festival Theatre production: I had done no research so as to come at it with no preconceptions. The most immediate impact of this was my joy in the opening scene on discovering that the appliances in the eponymous heroine's life are played by people: the Washing Machine (Me'sha Bryan), the Dryer (Ako Mitchell) and the Radio (Keisha Amponsa Banson, Dujonna Gift-Simms, and Tanisha Spring) – even the Bus (also Ako Mitchell) and the Moon (Angela Caesar) – the latter pair, obviously, not appliances. This lends an otherworldy, almost surreal frivolity but simultaneously a strong note of darkness to the production right from the opening scene. Caroline is a black maid in a white Louisiana household in 1963, and the cramped basement – metaphorically ‘underwater’ rather than underground, as the libretto repeatedly asserts – which contains these appliances, forms the world in which she lives the majority of her life: hence their necessary personification. Or in the case of the Dryer, devilification.

In brief, Caroline is told by her boss that she can keep any change she finds in the pockets of the trousers she washes: intended as a deterrent to the 8-year old boy in the house who repeatedly leaves change there despite being told not to. The struggle between poverty and pride which this ill-considered gesture occasions comes to a head when the boy leaves his $20 Hanukkah Geld in his pocket.

But really this storyline is only a backdrop on which to pin a collection of struggles undergone internally by a host of characters: from the boy, Noah, (played absolutely exceptionally on the night I saw the show by Jack Meredith) who has lost his mother and feels far fonder of the steely and taciturn maid than of the friend his father has married; to that father (Alastair Brookshaw), distant and heartbroken and connected only it seems to the clarinet he plays beautifully; to the friend of his dead wife whom he has married (Lauren Ward as Rose Stopnick Gellman), uncomfortably relocated to the south from her natural home on the Hudson river; to Caroline herself (Sharon D. Clarke), with four children to support, one in Vietnam, and a broken heart from the departure of a once beautiful and loving husband who found himself disenfranchised on return from the war in Japan and descended into alcohol and violence; to her daughter Emmie (Abiona Omonua), fired up by and active in the civil rights movement sweeping the nation.

The troubles and the flaws of each individual are what make this production: the performances being absolutely outstanding across the board – but something is missing. While Jeanine Tesori's music, a glorious mix of blues, opera, Motown and even klezmer, and Tony Kushner's through-sung libretto are enormously enjoyable, there is something strangely unfulfilling about the whole when it finishes, as if somehow among a number of striking impressions offered by the production, some of the story has been forgotten. On reflection, it feels as though the addition of the singing appliances, and the moon, while huge fun, stretch the whole piece in time more than its plot can withstand, and the result is a nagging sense of disappointment at the absence of a climactic ending. Perhaps, however, there is a lesson embedded here. Caroline's return to work after a brief flaring up of temper is indicative of how entrenched the position of the black community was, how change – so central a theme in both senses of the word – is harder won than anyone would hope.

I would recommend this production for teachers and students because of its depiction of a culturally and historically essential period of the 20th century, and because the performances are so brilliant, and cannot fail to inspire. But be ready for a feeling when it ends that you've missed something along the way somewhere.

Caroline, or Change plays until 6 April at the Playhouse Theatre in London. carolineorchange.co.uk