Deirdre Osborne: 'Know Whence you Came': Dramatic Art and Black British Identity

New Theatre Quarterly Vol.XXIII Part 3 August, 2007. 253-263.

Kwame Kwei-Armah’s play Elmina’s Kitchen achieved a landmark in British theatre history as the first drama by an indigenous black writer to be staged in London’s commercial West End. The play’s success since its premiere at the Royal National Theatre includes a national tour and a season at the Baltimore theatre USA directed by August Wilson’s director Marion McClinton. In this interview Kwei-Armah testifies to Wilson’s considerable influence and the inspiration he derives from Wilson’s project to account for the history of black people’s experience in every decade of the twentieth century.