Shades of meaning

I never read reviews, but this time I have been tempted,' says Cecilia Noble, laughing.

And well she might: Yellowman, the Pulitzer-nominated play she's starring in with Kevin Harvey, was universally applauded by the critics at its UK premiere in Liverpool (preceding the coming run at Hampstead Theatre) - and they were especially impressed by Noble's performance.

She plays Alma, a dark-skinned black woman from South Carolina, who recounts her childhood in the 1960s and 1970s and her love for light-skinned Eugene (Harvey) as they sit on stage, together but apart, speaking in overlapping monologues.

They present an uncompromising look at racism within the black community. Alma, as her mother continually tells her, is 'big, black and ugly'; Eugene is 'high yella', mocked by men blacker than him (including his own father) and considered off-limits to the likes of Alma.

The colour issue among black people - a poisonous legacy of slavery - is burned into the psyche of African-Americans, but it hasn't drawn so much attention artistically this side of the Atlantic.

'I think it is an issue in this country, though not as much as 20 or 30 years ago,' says Noble. 'Mainly in the way of what's considered beautiful and what's considered plain. It's become so much a part of everyday language within the black community to discriminate between who's black and who's half-black that I think people will relate to it.'

But the play is not only about black issues, as Noble points out. 'It works on many different levels: it's about families, growing up with hope and having that hope dashed by society. It touches on the human condition of love and hate. The obstacle for these two characters is their blackness, but it could be any of the things we as humans put on each other.'

Noble describes her role as an actor's joy and, after 15 years in the business, the hardest part she has ever had to learn. 'Dael [Orlandersmith, the playwright] has written it so we're telling one story but in two separate places. We never actually look at each other during the show,' she says.

Both actors also have to morph into other characters along the way. 'I start off being 40, then I play seven, at one point I play a man. Then I'll be my mother, then I'll be his father,' Noble says gleefully about what would give lesser actors palpitations, especially as they have to adopt a range of accents.

Not only that, she's taking a part that Orlandersmith wrote for herself, and played to great praise in the US. (The playwright caught the show in Liverpool, and apparently approved).

The language of the play is hypnotically poetic - and liberally peppered with the N-word, a challenge for actors and audience alike.

'This happened to me when I was doing an August Wilson piece,' says the Hackney-raised Noble. 'I said "I can't say that, it's a swear word!" But what I like about the way Dael writes is she hammers home the difference between a n***** and a black person, by using the N-word continually and making you think how you feel about it.