The Legends of Them. Royal Court Theatre.

Close to a decade in the making, Sutara Gayle’s autobiographical The Legends of Them, co-created by director Jo McInnes and dramaturg Nina Lyndon, has taken a further 15 months in its welcome transfer from Brixton House to the Royal Court. The one-woman piece is hard to pin down.  Part performance art, part lifetime coming-of-age narrative, and part personal manifesto, The Legends of Them mashes up superb original music, verse, monologue, voiceover, and video into an anthology of influences that portray “the blueprint of my life”.  And quite a life it turns out to be.

Born one of eight children to an evangelical Windrush Generation mother, Lorna Gayle endures a difficult though loving childhood marked by multiple school exclusions, a violent, largely absent father, run-ins with the police, and a brush with sexual abuse. At 13, she discovers the burgeoning South London reggae scene. A chance encounter with Linton Kwesi Johnson in a dole queue inspires her to write music in the guise of Lorna Gee, though the first time she hears her debut song on the radio, she is incarcerated in Holloway Prison.

Gayle drifts from one low-paid job to another before becoming a trailblazing female deejay with success in New York as the “British-born Brixtonian out of town from London”. She survives encounters with sexually voracious promoters and drug dealers and comes tortuously to terms with her growing attraction for women: “My dick days are well and truly over”, she tells a particularly predatory admirer. In 1985, her family faces tragedy when her sister Cherry is shot down by police, an event that ignites days of rioting.

A search for spiritual awakening sees Gayle on a quest to India under the guidance of her elder brother and guru Mooji, there to meditate on what and who has made her who she is – her indomitable mother, a much-missed sister, and the celebrated Jamaican national hero Nanny of the Maroons. She shaves her head, burns her dreads, and re-emerges as the fully formed though still vulnerable Sutara.

Gayle’s complex non-linear narrative evolves in a kind of meditative dream space that beautifully (and unflinchingly) draws us into the complexities of a troubled inner life. The character is constantly being questioned: by herself, by a probing voiceover from Mooji, by family and by ancestor, and by a host of unexpected characters with whom she has drive-by (though consequential) encounters. Occasionally the shifts in time, tempo, and perspective confuse, but McInnes’ tight direction and the stonking stage presence behind Gayle’s monumental performance mostly smooth over the bumps.

Christella Litras’ impeccably rendered musical palette offers a nod to gospel, calypso, ballad, and reggae, amongst others. Stage design sees Gayle deliver her final peroration atop a twin bank of speakers that looks rather like a gothic church, a reference perhaps to the key influence music and religion have had on Gayle’s life.  Joshie Harriette’s impeccable lighting delivers brush strokes of colour in waves that undulate with music and verse; think a live rendition of an impressionist painting.

The Legends of Them is a lingering, thought-provoking, beautifully produced piece that defies easy definition but works immaculately, entirely on its own terms. Those ten years in development prove well spent and offer up a welcome addition to what looks to be an emerging run of successes at the Royal Court.

STAR RATING:  4 stars

Writer:  Sutara Gayle

Director:  Jo McInnes