Juicy, Tender, and Packs a Punch: Reviewing 'The Hot Wing King' at the National Theatre
★★★★ | With a name like The Hot Wing King, my expectations going into the National's Dorfman Theatre were tame; I would have been happy with a light bite play, sprinkled with fresh comedy and a hint of emotional depth. Instead, Roy Alexander Weise’s direction of Katori Hall’s Pulitzer Prize-winning script unfolded into the recipe for a near-perfect play – oozing with multi-dimensional, well-crafted characters, it was a faultless balance between bellyache-inducing comedy and soul-baring tenderness.
The Hot Wing “Kang”, Cordell (Kadiff Kirwan), opens the Memphis-based play by asking his two friends Big Charles (Jason Barnett) and Isom (Olisa Odele) to try his flavoured chicken wings, just one day before the anticipated Hot Wing Contest. Barnett and Odele shine in their roles, offering us the majority of the show’s masterful comedic acting while simultaneously delivering some of the piece's most profound lines. Soon after, we meet Cordell’s partner Dwayne (Simon-Anthony Rhoden), whom we learn is a manager at a hotel, owns the house they live in, and whose chemistry with Cordell is simply magnetic. Their love is intimate in all the right ways: sexy and heated, whilst unwaveringly affectionate and convincingly painful.
Cordell’s chicken wing dreams are jeopardised, however, by the unexpected arrival of Dwayne’s nephew, EJ (Kaireece Denton). This troubled teen, we learn, lost his mother to the fatal hands of police brutality and is the son of an absent father embedded in a world of crime in order to make ends meet. The Hot Wing King soldiers through the painful demands that come with loving someone, shows the multifaceted and non-homogenous experiences of being a black man in modern America, and demonstrates beautifully complex examples of queer black love. Rightfully, it was met with a standing ovation on press night.
The cast of The Hot Wing King. Photo Credit: Helen Murray
If this play itself were a chicken wing, it would be marinated to the bone. In every detail, the play is fully developed, especially its portrayal of the experiences of the four gay black men at the heart of the piece. Unlike the stories of many LGBTQIA+ dramas, their sexuality is not positioned as the source of confusion and strife in this play. But neither does the play overlook the very real traumas that come with growing up differently in a heteronormative world.
In the central relationship between Cordell and Dwayne, Cornell grapples not with his sexuality or love for Dwayne, but with his own sense of self and masculinity while being unable to “provide” financially in this new dynamic. It is a narrative that addresses the real, complex ways that every relationship – even the ones built on love – is in constant negotiation with gender roles and power dynamics. Kirwan and Rhoden present standout lead performances rooted in as much humour as tear-jerking emotion, grounding the play in a way that allows you to hold out hope that the characters will overlook their personal insecurities and put their persevering love for one another first by the play’s end.
Odele is phenomenal as Isom, evoking cackles and claps with his magnetic stage presence and presenting perhaps the most intelligently hilarious performance I’ve seen in recent theatre. Barnett’s Big Charles is the quick-witted older member of the group, shouting at the TV with a comb stored permanently lodged in his hair. Yet, in other scenes, Barnett’s character shifts into a man whose calm demeanour and wise truths ground Cordell in his darkest moments.
Dwane Walcott and Kaireece Denton in The Hot Wing King. Photo Credit: Helen Murray.
Beyond this charismatic quartet, the most unexpectedly developed character is TJ (Dwane Walcott), Dwayne’s brother-in-law and EJ’s unforgiving father. TJ could easily have been left as the stereotypical bum father he is portrayed as in the first half. However, Hall’s slow development of TJ’s character after the interval is impressive, tapping into the psychological reasons why TJ is trying, but failing, to “do right” by his son. Walcott gives a performance of believable sensitivity – working through the slow-burn process of what it means to love and heal. It is a beautiful depiction of black masculinity that we hardly see represented on London’s stages.
The costuming is equal parts exquisitely curated and deeply funny, with printed chicken wing shirts and a Versace robe effectively driving laughs throughout the night. Rajha Shakiry is responsible for this clever costuming, as well as, the ingenious three-level set design. Though the main kitchen-living room space sets the scene most of the time, there is also an “AirBnB”-styled room upstairs that becomes the heart of CJ’s subplot, plus an outdoor space at the front of the stage where most of Cordell’s inner development takes place. Impressiveness lies in how the space is maximised by Shakiry to create a dynamic set, transformed only by lighting during the performance.
One character’s meddling with Cordell’s recipe leads to a scene that earned gasps and screams in the auditorium, but Cordell’s chicken wings are not the only things to come under heat. Hall’s ruthless dialogue captures the very real hurt that comes with the fact that it is those who know you better than yourself who know just what to say to penetrate your “cracks”. Yet, The Hot Wing King is ultimately an uplifting story, one where hopefulness is not rooted in an idealised ending but in an imperfect, beautiful resolution between people who care for one another. As Big Charles says in one of many tenderfelt moments, those who know you best may be able to hurt you deeply, but they are also the only ones who know exactly where to put the “superglue” to fix you up.
What The Hot Wing King does best is create a truly moving sense of reality. Every character is three-dimensional and credible, and they come alive under Roy Alexander Weise’s direction and a highly talented cast. This is a must-watch piece of feel-good theatre this summer.
The Hot Wing King plays at the Dorfman in the National Theatre until 14 September.
Edited by Elizabeth Grace, Theatre Editor.
