There
is both a vast amount and virtually nothing to say about this
presentation… as, perhaps, befits the diffuseness of a production with
a cast of 12 (plus a child) but 20 writers (although material from
only[!] 15 is presented onstage). First the virtually nothing: Rupert
Goold directs for his Headlong company with his customary flair, though
fewer audio-visual fripperies than one associates with him. The
basement space in St Katharine Docks is dressed up as an elegant
restaurant atop one of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre; for
the decade in question is the one since September 11, 2001.
The
foreword to the compendious playtext talks about Headlong’s theatrical
mission in terms of examining big subjects, asking questions. But I
think very little examination or questioning actually takes place here.
Goold was clear from the start that the dramatic approach to such a
watershed event had to be
collagiste,
in order to avoid seeming excessively narrow in focus or tendentious in
perspective. But what we get is a three-hour evening that looks at 9/11
and its War-on-Terror penumbra from all angles (except, curiously, that
of the airline passengers – are they still considered too sacrosanct?)
but
sees nothing in
particular. What is it saying beyond the obvious, that this was a big
and important event? How was it important? Why? In some ways it is too
obvious for words, in others too arcane. Simon Schama, in his
mini-essay delivered here as a monologue, explicitly repudiates that
kind of take-away significance, “wisdom as cheeseburger”. But without
something to gnaw on, what is the point of the project, beyond a
vaporous commemoration and a kind of mutual, communal affirmation that
we all lived through this moment in history and experienced its… then
the questions begin again: its what? This is the vast amount, and it
remains unsaid in the production as in this review.
Lynn
Nottage’s snapshot of multicultural life in the shadow of the Towers is
mature in its complexity, as characters move repeatedly towards and
away from racist generalisations; Mike Bartlett’s ultra-Mamet scene
imagines the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden explaining the
realities of his own motivation. In some ways Matthew Lopez’s series of
scenes is a microcosm of the whole, as a group of widows meet on the
anniversary of the event, in reverse chronology from 2011 until 2000.
In the resolute Alice especially, we see a determination that September
11 be preserved as a defining moment, but no actual definition other
than the date itself.
Written for the Financial
Times.