The Cabaret and Pose star is making his UK directorial debut with Harrison David Rivers’ play about love and activism. We join rehearsals with Omari Douglas and Alexander Lincoln
When Billy Porter talks, people listen. They have no choice. The actor, fresh from a stint as Emcee in the London run of Cabaret, and about to reprise the role on Broadway, speaks in a poised, purposeful, regal fashion. Each word is selected with care and weighed in his hand as if it were an avocado in the fruit and veg aisle, the gaps between words so lengthy that it isn’t always clear when he has finished speaking. Seated around the table in the south London studio where Porter is overseeing rehearsals for This Bitter Earth, which marks his UK directorial debut, are the playwright Harrison David Rivers and the actors Omari Douglas (It’s a Sin) and Alexander Lincoln (Emmerdale). Everyone maintains an attentive silence while Porter is speaking, until there can be no doubt that he has completed his thought.
“The … beautiful … part of this play,” he says, easing his feet out of a pair of marshmallow-soft cream-and-ebony moon boots and nudging them to one side, “is we get to watch two people who love each other try … time … and time … and time … and time again … and they never give up … on themselves … or on love. There is hope … We don’t have to be divided. Having conversations that are complicated is what makes the healing happen … without blame … without shame.”
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