ABSTRACT
The black community could no longer be taken for granted and was demanding its rights as British citizens. The production represented a massive challenge for Talawa, and, despite its problems the use of the Egungun mask, for instance, was not altogether successful it made a powerful statement about the significance of the play and the company's ambition. In the first two decades since it was founded, Talawa had produced more than forty plays, drawing on a range of cultures and performance traditions that had been used to explore the meanings of blackness and of Britishness. The sheer number of groups and initiatives that have been launched since the end of the 1980s makes it impossible to offer a meaningful survey, particularly in the absence of any focus such as the Black Theatre Forum provided. Black and Asian theatre has created a network of artists and groups distinguished by their own methods, their own values, and their own body of work. .
