ear for eye
directed by debbie tucker green
running time: 1hr23 | REVIEWED BY CATHERINE BRAY
Nadine Marshall stars in ear for eye by debbie tucker green
“Progress is a slow bitch, with a wandering mind […] Change don’t give a fuck, change gonna do this thing with or without you, and it moves the fuck on.” — ear for eye, debbie tucker green
Playing out as a series of interconnected vignettes, exploring the macrocosmic and microcosmic textures of what it is to exist in a racist society as a Black person, ear for eye is not the first screen outing for playwright debbie tucker green. Her hour-long programme Random for Channel 4 and feature debut Second Coming for Film4 both showed precisely why she is so revered, with over a dozen theatre credits to her name.
However, ear for eye (adapted for the screen from her play of the same name, which I was transfixed by at the Royal Court Theatre in 2018) is different. It feels to me like there’s a cutting loose here, a freedom. Perhaps that’s partly because this is a more experimental piece: we’re in an elegant, stripped-back set throughout (where Random and Second Coming were set in recognisable suburban neighbourhoods, with lots of on location filming), and that decision to lean into a minimalist aesthetic enables the piece to leap fluidly from setting to setting, dropping in well-chosen pieces of both historical and contemporary archive where necessary (plus a couple of more abstract animated sequences, and, as in the play, multiple black and white pieces to camera), but mainly just trusting the actors to take us there. And take us there they do: the ensemble cast is a joy, blending the work of regulars like Nadine Marshall and Sharlene Whyte with tucker green ensemble newcomers.
The ensemble is well supported by deceptively light-touch editing from Mdhamiri Á Nkemi, who has done a sensitive job of showcasing just the right notes of each performance — the edit beats feel precise and logical, and yet natural, like a heartbeat. (Decent editing is often what is missing from theatre captured for screen — or rather, editors working on these projects are often not given enough coverage of the project to enable them to do their work well, so praise is also due here to director of photography Luciana Riso).
Fundamentally, ear for eye simply feels more alive than most stage-to-screen translations, and goes beyond a simple adaptation into a whole new hybrid form of work.
tucker green has created a project than lives and breathes on screen, debating activism, liberty, victim-blaming, parenting, language, policing, justice, and perhaps most crucially, the need for change, without compromising the stark poetry of the original piece. I hope we see more theatre pieces evolved for the screen this way, and I hope we see more, in any medium, from tucker green; this is highly accomplished work.
ear for eye (2021) written by debbie tucker green | edited by Mdhamiri Á Nkemi | shot by Luciana Riso
