Reviewed by:

• Stars: An Afrofuturist Space Odyssey by Mojisola Adebayo
• Isabel Stuart

STARS, a play by Mojisola Adebayo, centers around an older Black woman, Mrs, who has spent her life searching the universe for an orgasm. Her neglectful husband, Mr, who never even briefly considered Mrs’s pleasure, has died, opening new possibilities for Mrs to live her life without the patriarchal limitations placed on her by Mr’s presence. The Black feminist politics of STARS is deeply connected to finding hope and joy both in the everyday and in far-reaching imaginations of other galaxies before and beyond our current world. This combination of domesticity and otherworldliness, where pleasure is both tied to the present and flying off into the future, underlies the political efficac of Adebayo’s ambitious exploration of Black feminist and queer joy in STARS.

Creating an atmosphere—or, perhaps more accurately, a “vibe”—of enjoyment and pleasure was integral to the politics of STARS even before the performance began. As the audience entered the performance space, we could choose from either sitting in standard theatre seats near the back or lying down on beanbags near the front of the stage, as if gazing up at a starry night, situating the audience within the astronautical world of the production. [End Page 112] The raked circular stage was illuminated by a ring of light, as if the stage were a faraway planet that Mrs was exploring. Atop this planet-like stage was a homely scene made up of a table and chair and a fridge, which, once spun around, turned into a washing machine. This set design (by Miriam Nabarro) combined the domestic with the intergalactic, highlighting the sense of discovery and wonder that can be found in the everyday while also suggesting a home that is emotionally off-balance

Debra Michaels (Mrs) in STARS: An Afrofuturist Space Odyssey. (Photo: Ali Wright; courtesy of Tamasha.)

As the audience entered, there was a live DJ to the left of the stage playing a mix of house music and techno, creating an atmosphere reminiscent of a 1990s nightclub. Following this theme, on two nights of the run, STARS transformed from a play into a celebratory club right after the show had finished, featuring multiple DJs, dancing, and popup performances from characters in the show. This experimentation with and expansion of the theatrical form produced a multimedia experience that spanned artforms and generations, from African folklore and mythology to the unimagined realms of outer space. Both the production itself and the atmosphere surrounding it created an Afrofuturist vision that was unapologetically queer and feminist.

Despite pleasure and enjoyment being key to how STARS was produced and received, the production was also fie cely political and not without heartbreak. Mrs’s determination to experience female pleasure was marked by her own struggles as a working-class Black woman in her sixties who is finally free from her abusive husband and by the struggles of the people she encountered on her journey. STARS was predominantly a one-woman show (aside from the live DJ, Bradley Charles, who also played Mrs’s largely absent son); Debra Michaels performed Mrs as well as all other characters in the play.

A key character was Maryam, a young Muslim girl who knocked on Mrs’s door and asked to use her toilet. After this initial encounter, Maryam and Mrs became friends, as Maryam kept returning to her house to use the toilet and work on her school project about outer space. Like Mrs, Maryam was fascinated by worlds beyond her own. Their imaginative conversations about extraterrestrial exploration were supported by animations projected on a screen behind the stage, which aimed to capture both Mrs’s and Maryam’s expansive visions of other worlds. These animations were accompanied by creative captions, which acted as an accessibility tool while showcasing Adebayo’s lyrical and poetic script. [End Page 113]

As Maryam shared more about her life, Mrs discovered that she had undergone genital mutilation. The two characters...

 审阅者：

• 
  明星：莫吉索拉·阿德巴约的非洲未来主义太空漫游
•  伊莎贝尔·斯图尔特

莫吉索拉·阿德巴约 (Mojisola Adebayo) 创作的戏剧《STARS》以一位年长的黑人女性夫人为中心，她一生都在宇宙中寻找性高潮。她疏忽大意的丈夫先生去世了，他从未短暂地考虑过夫人的快乐，这为夫人的生活提供了新的可能性，使她摆脱了先生的存在对她施加的父权制限制。 STARS 的黑人女权主义政治与在日常生活中以及在我们当前世界之前和之外的其他星系的深远想象中寻找希望和快乐密切相关。这种家庭生活和超凡脱俗的结合，其中的快乐既与现在联系在一起，又飞向未来，这是阿德巴约在《STARS》中对黑人女权主义和酷儿快乐的雄心勃勃的探索的政治功效的基础。

甚至在演出开始之前，创造一种享受和愉悦的氛围——或者更准确地说，一种“氛围”——就已经是 STARS 政治不可或缺的一部分。当观众进入表演空间时，我们可以选择坐在靠近后部的标准剧院座位上，或者躺在靠近舞台前部的豆袋上，仿佛仰望星空，让观众置身于太空的太空世界中。生产。 [完第112页]倾斜的圆形舞台被一圈光照亮，仿佛舞台是夫人正在探索的遥远星球。在这个星球般的舞台上，是一个由桌椅和冰箱组成的温馨场景，冰箱一旋转就变成了洗衣机。这个布景设计（由 Miriam Nabarro 设计）将家庭与星际融为一体，突出了日常生活中的发现感和惊奇感，同时也暗示了一个情感失衡的家

《星星：非洲未来主义太空漫游》中的黛布拉·迈克尔斯（夫人）。 （照片：Ali Wright；由 Tamasha 提供。）

当观众入场时，舞台左侧有一位现场 DJ 演奏混合了 house 音乐和 techno 的音乐，营造出一种让人想起 90 年代夜总会的氛围。遵循这一主题，在演出的两个晚上，STARS 在演出结束后立即从一场戏剧转变为一个庆祝俱乐部，有多名 DJ、舞蹈和剧中角色的快闪表演。这种戏剧形式的实验和扩展产生了一种跨越艺术形式和世代的多媒体体验，从非洲民间传说和神话到难以想象的外太空领域。作品本身和周围的氛围都创造了一种非洲未来主义的愿景，毫无疑问是酷儿和女权主义的。

尽管愉悦和享受是《STARS》制作和接受的关键，但制作过程也充满了政治色彩，而且不无令人心碎的地方。夫人决心体验女性的快乐，这体现在她作为一名六十多岁的工人阶级黑人女性的挣扎中，最终摆脱了虐待她的丈夫，也体现在她在旅途中遇到的人们的挣扎中。 STARS 主要是一场单人表演（除了现场 DJ 布拉德利·查尔斯（Bradley Charles），他还扮演了夫人基本上缺席的儿子）；黛布拉·迈克尔斯扮演了夫人以及剧中的所有其他角色。

其中一个关键人物是玛丽亚姆，一位年轻的穆斯林女孩，她敲了夫人的门，要求使用她的厕所。在初次相遇之后，玛丽亚姆和夫人成了朋友，因为玛丽亚姆不断回到她的家中使用厕所并完成她的学校有关外太空的项目。和夫人一样，玛丽亚姆也对自己之外的世界着迷。他们关于外星探索的富有想象力的对话得到了舞台后面屏幕上投影的动画的支持，该动画旨在捕捉夫人和玛丽亚姆对其他世界的广阔视野。这些动画附有创意字幕，作为辅助工具，同时展示阿德巴约的抒情和诗意剧本。 [完第113页]

当玛丽亚姆更多地分享她的生活时，夫人发现她遭受了生殖器切割。这两个角色...