Review: The Story, National Theatre

The Story by Tracey Scott Wilson is about finding and telling a story and where the truth of it lies. Set in a newspaper office, it’s based loosely on the case of a Washington Post journalist who won and subsequently gave up a prestigious award for an article they had written when its origins were questioned. In the play, the story that sparks ‘the story’ is about a middle-class white couple who get lost while driving to a restaurant in a less affluent part of the city. The husband gets shot and killed, and the wife identifies the shooter as a black male, but the police struggle to find the perpetrator. At the local newspaper, the Vanguard section, headed by Pat (Lorraine Toussaint), is investigating. Reporter Neil (Ashley Thomas) is digging into the background of the widow, and ambitious rookie Yvonne (Letitia Wright), tired of being assigned what she deems mundane stories, unearths an explosive lead. Unbeknownst to Pat and Neil, Yvonne also happens to be in a relationship with white…