Jade Anouka shares her personal story in Heart (photo by Trévon James 2022)

HEART
Audible Theater’s Minetta Lane Theatre
18 Minetta Lane between Sixth Ave. and MacDougal St.
Wednesday – Sunday through August 14, $30-$67
www.audible.com/ep/minettalane
hearttheplay.com

British poet and performer Jade Anouka establishes the parameters of her world premiere one-person show, Heart, from the very beginning, in an explanatory prologue. Standing front and center onstage, she tells the audience at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre, “This story was written by a black woman. / But this story has no mention of blackness. / This story is being performed by a black woman. / The fact that she is black / And a woman / Is political enough / And she already takes up much of her life talking about it. / About being black / And how it feels to be a woman. / So this is a just a story / Told by a black woman. / This is not a black story / Or a woman story / This is perhaps a story / For all the misfits, all those who have ever felt ‘other.’”

For the next seventy minutes, through six scenes plus an interlude and an epilogue, Anouka, a self-declared hopeless romantic who was born in London in 1990, shares her deeply intimate tale of her search for who she is, seeking personal and professional success. “I invite you to feel / Feel the rhythms / Of your own heartbeat / As I tell you a story / My story,” she says.

In spoken-word verse that ranges from furious rap to Shakespearean metre, Anouka — who, at the age of only thirty-one, has already appeared in nine works by the Bard, in addition to starring in such British series as Cleaning Up and Turn Up Charlie and portraying witch Ruta Skadi in His Dark Materials — leads us through a failed marriage; being misunderstood by her Bible-thumping Trinidadian mother and Jamaican father; a booze-and-drugs-fueled sexual rampage; using running to escape her issues; and jumping into a surprising new relationship.

Along the way, she offers no apologies for the choices she makes, concentrating on small instances that help define her emotional and psychological journey, like the tender interlocking of fingers. But ever-present is what she calls “the beast,” which she first saw in her husband but now believes is inside her. “I know he’s got a dark side / But sure haven’t we all,” she notes, later admitting, worried about her own mental health, “Precious moments of stillness / Of breath, of noticing / My beast / Realising / My beast.”

Anouka is haunted by thoughts of inadequacy, as a daughter, an actor, and a partner. “Unfortunately / I’m stuck with me / Trying to be / The best version / Of me I can be / But inadequacy / Pulls me inside of me / Can’t see the strengths / Only focus on the bad of me . . . It’s my beast you see / It’s taunting me,” she confesses in a way we can all relate to.

When she falls hard for someone, she attempts to break free of the beast and find joy in a new relationship, opining, “I so wish I was bolder / So wish I was braver / I so wish you could be proud of me / So wish you could love me / So wish you could trust me / So wish you knew just what I do / That I’d shout from the rooftops / And sing from the rafters / I love you I love you I love you! / But I can’t do that / I’m scared to do that.” But this time she’s determined to make things work.

Anouka is no stranger to solo performances. She turned her 2015 poem “Winning,” from her poetry collection Eggs on Toast, into a spirited video and won a Stage Award for Acting Excellence at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe Festival for Sabrina Mahfouz’s one-person show, Chef. Although the narrative sometimes lapses into the mundane, the staging picks it up, occasionally literally. Heart is gorgeously directed by Ola Ince (The Convert, Poet in da Corner), with a wonderfully transcendent set by Obie winner Arnulfo Maldonado.

Jade Anouka rises high in world premiere one-person show (photo by Trévon James 2022)

Anouka, in a colorful costume by Emily Rebholz, interacts with several rows of fabric hanging from the ceiling alongside narrow, vertical neon bulbs, their hues changing with Anouka’s emotions courtesy of Obie winner Jen Schriever’s majestic lighting. Early on, a swing drops down from above like a gift from heaven, offering Anouka a brief respite of childhood innocence. Later, she climbs atop a tall chair that nearly reaches the rafters, evoking both a lifeguard station and a high chair for infants. The engaging movement choreography is by Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster. Tony winner Fitz Patton’s sound design (with original music by Renell Shaw and Patton) serves a key role from the outset, starting with a low drone that murmurs through the theater as the audience enters.

Audible specializes in presenting short runs of one-person shows (with some exceptions, as with the recent truncated, controversial adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night) that are available as audiobooks. Previous productions include Faith Salie’s Approval Junkie, Lili Taylor in Wallace Shawn’s The Fever, Carey Mulligan in Dennis Kelly’s Girls & Boys, and Billy Crudup in David Cale’s Harry Clarke.

Heart is so dependent on the compelling staging and Anouka’s connection with the theatergoers — she tries to make eye contact with every audience member, never just looking into space — that I can’t imagine simply listening to it through earphones or in the car without those visuals. So get yourselves over to the Minetta Lane to see it in person as soon as you can; your heart will thank you.

[Note: The August 10 performance will be followed by a talkback with Anouka and playwright Dave Harris (Exception to the Rule, Tambo & Bones).]