REVIEW: Powerful and thought-provoking hang at Crucible Theatre

TWENTY years after the MacPherson report, hang, by debbie tucker green raises important questions about what justice means.

The report — into the brutal racist murder of Stephen Lawrence — exposed institutional racism. But what has changed?

This Sheffield Theatres production uses dramatic sound design by Dan Balfour, who curates the aural experience of hang alongside director Taio Lawson, which never misses a beat.

Diveen Henry brilliantly portrays the woman at the centre of a gruelling exploration of trauma following a devastatingly violent incident.

Set in the near future, she plays Three who is being interviewed by a government department in a sterile room.

Marianne Oldham plays One and Sid Sagar is her apparent assistant Two, though we never find out their real roles.

But Three, her husband, and their two young children have been the victims of a depraved crime, which is traumatic for the entire family. Can the bureaucrats ever understand the racism they experience?

Three has to make a powerful choice about the perpetrator’s fate. Various gruesome methods of execution are graphically described to her.

But the question asked is, does revenge heal the trauma?

Superbly acted, Oldham and Sagar are a well-crafted double act bringing out humour and revulsion as the abnormal is normalised.

A powerful and thought-provoking play by an important playwright which is immaculately directed.

hang is at the Crucible’s studio theatre until March 9.