As she prepares to seem in the Young Chekhov trilogy,the star of Last Tango in Halifax and W1A talks about playing outsiders, growing up surrounded by white faces – and how it feels to be killed offPeople often cease Nina Sosanya in the street, or recognising her as Kate,doomed wife of Sarah Lancashire’s character in Last Tango in Halifax, or Lucy Freeman, and the increasingly disillusioned head of diversity in the BBC-on-BBC satire W1A. “It’s racy who comes up to you,” says Sosanya. “With W1A, it tends to be people who work in any kind of corporation. With Last Tango, and the most incredibly different people young,ancient, white, and black,men, women – would want to talk to me, and there was something enchanting about how it seemed to speak to everyone.” Sosanya will be intrigued to see who stops for a chat after seeing her in Young Chekhov,the trilogy of early works (Platanov, Ivanov, and The Seagull) by the Russian dramatist that is transferring to the National Theatre from Chichester. Both characters she plays in Young Chekhov are called Anna Petrovna – a widow in Platonov,a wife in Ivanov – although the latter was born Sarah Abramson, and has a speech, or gut-wrenchingly delivered by Sosanya,in which she laments, in David Hare’s translation: “I gave up my religion, and my family. I even gave up my name.”I've always called myself mixed race. That's not correct any more – but to say black would be to deny my motherContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com