Zadie Smith is a fascinating writer. Best known as a novelist, essayist and short-story writer, Smith is the recipient of countless awards for her works like White Teeth (2000), The Autograph Man (2002), On Beauty (2005), NW (2012), and Swing Time (2016). She has just written her first play, The Wife of Willesden (2021).
In Alvita's prologue she riffs about marriage and misogyny, sex and religion. She is vibrant, provocative, assertive and energetic. Alvita doesn't suffer fools and knows what she wants from life. She also won't put up with any crap from anyone, as in this example where she stops Eldridge (Husband #4) from slut-shaming women:
'STOP RIGHT THERE. Please don't use, my brother,
One type of woman to cuss another.
We are all sisters. And don't try to neg
Me. You feel free to take me down a peg
Or two. Mention my crow's feet. Cellulite.
Tell me I'm boring or not too bright.
Cos you've worked out when I'm shy or sad
I won't stray too far. I won't act too bad.
But when I'm feeling myself; hear done right,
Clothes on point? Then you nuh want me out nights.
When I hit the club, it's full of your spied:
Your cousin, your sister's man. Benny. Mike.
You think your man dem can shut me down?
Step to Me; we'll see who ends 'pon the ground!'
As you can see, the dialogue is infused with modern rhyming couplets, patois and a sense of urgency. With other speakers she uses local dialects to reflect the diversity of the community. It is a remarkable feat of writing, and reminds me of how Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton brought contemporary life to the Federalist Papers with his hip-hop rap battles. Here, the dialogue is energetic and vibrant.
After the lengthy prologue, The Wife of Willseden's tale transports us to 18th century Jamaica (rather than Arthurian England). Here Auntie and Alvita introduce us to Queen Nanny, leader of the Jamaican Maroons - former slaves who fought the British in the First Maroon War (1728-1739) - and a poor Maroon who sought to discover what women want.
As a reader, you get a different experience reading a play from seeing it performed live. While there are stage directions, the reader doesn't have the benefit of a talented troupe of performers bringing life to the words on the page. However, I really appreciated the writing of this play. It has been a long time (almost 30 years!) since I read Chaucer so I cannot comment on Smith's technical abilities in transforming this verse, but I think she did a great job in making Chaucer accessible to a modern audience.
Finally, the way in which this play came about is fascinating. In the introduction to the The Wife of Willesden, Smith explains that in 2018 the Borough of Brent was named London's Borough of Culture for 2020. Smith is a lifetime resident of Brent and much of her fiction is set here, so naturally she was asked by organisers if she would assist by writing something. Without thinking too much about what she would write, Smith agreed, indicating that she may modernise something from the Canterbury Tales. She boarded a plane to Australia and landed to a Twitter storm where her proposed contribution had been misinterpreted into Smith authoring her first play. After an initial panic and consideration of retreat, Smith sat down and penned The Wife of Willesden, which is currently being performed at the Kiln Theatre in London (Nov 2021 to Jan 2022).