The National Theatre Symbol Analysis

The National Theatre symbolizes the debate over whether lawful reform or radical change is the best path to achieving social justice. The National Theatre represents the historically white-supremacist, patriarchal foundation and culture of English society. For years, women like Amma and Dominique were shut out from that world. When the pair were first getting their start in the arts, the mainstream theater world typecast them into demeaning and stereotypical roles. These injustices forced them to the margins where they formed their Bush Women Theater Company, which centered the stories and voices of women of color and therefore was the antithesis of the National Theater. As outsiders of the mainstream theater world, Amma and Dominique stormed the balcony of the National to protest the institution and the white, patriarchal society it represents. By middle age, however, Amma and her formerly radical friends shift their approach, opting to reform the system from within rather than disrupt the system as outsiders. Amma’s latest play shatters the glass ceiling that kept women of color off the National Theatre’s esteemed stage and reveals a National Theatre that is slowly starting to diversify and become less exclusionary. In her new relationship to the National Theatre, Amma is straddling the middle ground. While premiering her play at the National Theatre makes Amma a lawful reformer, bringing subversive ideas to the National Theatre allows her to sustain her role as a radical.

Each of the novel’s main characters falls in their own place along the spectrum of radical versus reform. The National is the bridge that connects these wildly different characters and their different approaches to creating systemic change and, as such, it symbolizes how reformers and radicals play equally vital roles in inspiring change and seeking social justice. Amma and Dominique’s work from outside the mainstream theater world, which generated buzz and asserted a place for women of color in English culture and society, helps make possible the monumental moment of reform that is Amma’s premiere at the National Theatre. At the same time, characters like Roland and Carole make change from within existing institutions, ascending the ranks and infiltrating historically white, male institutions. Throughout the novel, the radicals and the reformers criticize and dismiss one another, but through their final convergence at the National (to witness the premiere of Amma’s play), the novel highlights that both sides have their role to play in social change, and that neither path is more noble or worthy than the other.