PRISONER'S DILEMMA: Edgar, RSC Barbican, till 6 Apri (in rep)
THE PRISONER'S DILEMMA: David Edgar
The Pit, Barbican
Runs: 2h 50m, one interval, till 6 April 2002
Review: Vera Lustig, 2 February 2002
David Edgar at the top of his considerable form: dense, challenging and resonant play about politics in former USSR from 1989 to present day – and much more besides
Fictitious places, plausible scenario: Drozhdania is a breakaway province in Kavkhazia, a former USSR republic. Peace between the two is elusive. The drama moves between 'jaw jaw' and 'war war', melding history and invention: a peace treaty brokered in Scandinavia is derailed by bloodshed: Drozhdania in 2001 resembles Taliban-ruled Afghanistan . . .
Edgar is no propagandist; he embraces contradictions, pondering the price of peace, the exclusivity of 'civilised values'. His magisterial yet nimble intellect informs every word – aptly, as the play deconstructs language. Jokes, and jokes about jokes, illuminate cultural differences and affinities. A propulsive urgency tugs at the protocol, the strained pleasantries, the face-saving and mental thesaurus-thumbing. Attenborough's sober, unfussy production never obscures the big picture.
Three women carry the play's interweaving strands: Drozhdan activist Kelima (a melancholic, determined Zoe Waites) forces her comrades to spare a captured Kavkhazian. Gina (Penny Downie) is the prickly Finnish peace-broker. Diana Kent, maturing into haunted dignity over three scenes, is Floss, an actor turned aid worker. A gunman makes her choose which of two lives he will spare: she responds to this cruel dilemma with a helpless, legalistic 'Demonstrably . . . ' and is, literally, outgunned.
DILEMMA has an ironic symmetry. Scene One is a seminar at a California university. The participants hone their negotiating skills through role-play and theorising, while personal antagonisms emerge: Gina ('Compassion's how you start, now where you stay,') dismisses Floss as touchy-feely.
Soon theory becomes practice, as the participants get embroiled in the Kavkhazia/Drozhdania conflict. In the final scene, 12 years on, Floss begins a workshop for the impoverished Drozhdanis, undaunted by the arrival of paramilitaries. Another dilemma: submit, and disband the meeting, or continue?
Though the play's epic scope cries out for a larger space, the Pit's intimacy helps engage the audience, by their very stillness, in the most powerful – and cleverest – play-ending I have ever experienced.
Cast:
Al Bek, Young Man: Douglas Rao
Floss: Diana Kent
Patterson, Len: Joseph Mydell
James, 2nd Drozhdan, 2nd Paramilitary: David Wilmot
Gina, Mother: Penny Downie
Tom, Father: Larry Lamb
Nicolai, Lou: Trevor Cooper
Kelima: Zoe Waites
Jan, Boy, Asian: George Clarke/ Joshua Dale
Erik, Uri Vasilevich: Alan David
Roman, 2nd Kavkhazian Soldier: Robert Bowman
Hasim, 1st Kavkhazian Soldier: Robert Jezek
Emela, 1st Orderly, Sailor, Translator: Hattie Morahan
Walter, 1st Drozhdan, 2nd Orderly, Travelyan, Bodyguard, Zelim, 1st Paramilitary: Alex Zorbas
Director: Michael Attenborough
Design: Es Devlin
Lighting: Howard Harrison
Music: Paddy Cuneen
Sound: John A Leonard
Production supported by Bacon and Woodrow, British Land Co plc
2002-02-16 10:30:15