And I and Silence is powerful in its silences and noises punctuated by acting and directing skills. I had originally been drawn to the title and context of the play, the segregated America between the 1950-59; still I lacked no skepticism when I went to see this production.

The staging with additional net walls demarcating the stage boundaries seemed to work really well. They were placed in front of the curtains which allowed snippets of aesthetical moments for the audience when characters would appear behind them. They also proved pragmatic and flexible for capturing the time transition; the past that portrays the two friends Dee and Jamie in prison, and the present, when both of them are free to explore the world and job opportunities.  Although at the start the change of scenes seemed to move rather slowly, this dissolved as the play progressed. The red light and contextually specific clothing worked very well, and I actually think that if costumes were more professional-looking this might have ruined the intimate and accessible atmosphere.

The American accents, excluding the native one, stood out at first, but this was quickly overcome by the wonderful line exchanges and body language on stage. Actresses immersed in playfulness, joy and horror with great firmness in body and voice; Justina Kehinde, who plays older Jamie, filled the playroom with her chameleon-like voice executing anger and male character embodiment perfectly; Rosie Cross, the older Dee, captured her happy-go-lucky nature by never lacking the dejected state below the facade. The younger Jamie and Dee, Isabel Adomakoh-Young and Megan Henson respectively, did a good job as well, bringing out the flavour of the prison and youthfulness proficiently. Isabel proved good at bringing out Jamie's 'childish pouting' and tantrums, while Henson was very snappy and as nimble as Dee.

There wasn't a lot of violence on stage in general, but the little slapping and hitting here and there, was certainly well performed and eye-opening; it even made me worry slightly about the actresses at one point. This well-crafted text reached its height with the final scene which was technically demanding, but still successful and touching. I left the Playroom with no sense of time and shaken by the trapped little world and sad stories of Jamie and Dee.

If you want to know what the connection  between a cleaning rug and a bird is or between a beautiful text and a great performance, go to The Corpus Playroom this week. If not, then you are certainly missing out the humane statement the play reveals.