Playing at the National Theatre, The Hot Wing King is a touch too long but a sensitive look at black masculinity regardless
“A salty sauce brought upon by a heavy-handed pour”
In the heat of a Memphis, Tennessee summer, the annual Hot Wing contest is turning the temperature up even further. A group of four Black queer friends, led by Cordell, have their eyes on the prize, even calling themselves The New Wing Order. But as they prep for the extraordinary number of wings needed the night before the contest, an unexpected arrival throws their plans up in the air.
Katori Hall’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Hot Wing King arrives at the National Theatre in a bright and bold production from Roy Alexander Weise. Real wings are cooked on Rajha Shakiry’s domestic-based set design with delicious aromas percolating through the Dorfman, music fills the air with sing-along glee, a vibrant and visceral portrait offered of Black masculinity in the contemporary USA.
At nearly 3 hours long, Hall takes her time in drawing that portrait, her laidback approach almost sitcom-like in the interactions and inter-relationships between Cordell, his partner Dwayne and their pals Big Charles and Isom. The arrival of Dwayne’s nephew Everett and his homophobic criminal father TJ provides the key plot driver as Cordell and Dwayne squabble over what do with the young’un and the attention wavers from those all-important wings.
Issues of sexuality and self-image mix with chat about food and sport, stark looks at police brutality intersect with class and education, so many facets of being a man, being a Black man, get explored with sensitivity and with skill. Kadiff Kirwan’s Cornell is powerfully drawn, particularly in his relationship issues with Simon-Anthony Rhoden’s Dwayne. Jason Barnett and Olisa Odele are huge amounts of fun as the friends (with benefits) and Kaireece Denton and Dwane Walcott deal well with the dramatic stakes accompanying their later arrival.
