TALKING TO TERRORISTS. To 6 August.

London

TALKING TO TERRORISTS
by Robin Soans

Royal Court (Jerwood Theatre Downstairs) To 6 August 2005
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 3.30pm
Runs 2hr 25min One interval

TICKETS: 020 7565 5000
www.royalcourttheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 5 July

Voices of attackers and victims given maximum clarity.A busy week's delayed this review a few days. During which terrorists shouted at London. Do terrorists set their causes back or bring them to the fore? When a British ex-Northern Ireland secretary gives the play its title in one of the speeches recorded and edited by Robin Soans by saying Talking to terrorists is the only way to beat them, she's thinking of the Provisional IRA and their counterparts.

There's a shared language which doesn't exist between, say, Western societies and some violent groups elsewhere. Still, by letting terrorists talk Soans has unearthed a continuum that provides a context. We just want to die, it doesn't matter We just want martyrdom, a view reported from Iraq, sets a challenge for any government or society.

But Soans also explores the impact on people who have undergone kidnap or explosion. A mix of high-profile people, often recognisable behind the official titles, assures articulate if familiar responses; most interesting are the characters in the thick of events by design rather than accident.

As always in verbatim plays, there are questions. An Ex-Secretary of State's husband provides tea and biscuits with an inane smile. Was the smile inane on the original or an integral part of a character that's never developed? Is the inanity the kind of false note often heard when actors speak other people's conversational speech? Does it inform an image of calm safety that contrasts the courage of the former minister or mislead? What, anyway, is its purpose?

Such questions crop up in less obvious but more important places. Spoken words acquire a personality how much are we responding to the speaker's personality, how much to the tone and manner of the actor (who, presumably, rarely if ever met the original)? Max Stafford-Clark's Out of Joint production employs restrained intensity, leaving the words as uncluttered as possible, as its solution.

There is a great deal of information here, uncovering complexities, showing responses to the last kidnap, hijack of bombing will never be enough to prevent the next and that no one world-view will ever comprehend what makes everyone in the world tick.

Ex-member of the National Resistance Army, Uganda/Nodira/Girl/Ingrid: Chipo Chung
Aftab/Ez-member of the UVF/Ex-ambassador: Jonathan Cullen
Edward/Another Ex-Secretary of State/Michael: Christopher Ettridge
John/British Army Colonel/Jad/Ex-member of the Kurdish Workers Party: Alexander Hanson
Momsie/Archbishop's Envoy/Ex-member of the IRA/Dermot: Lloyd Hutchinson
Marjory/Rima/Phoebe: Catherine Russell
Faiser/Ex-head of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Bethlehem/Matthew: Chris Ryman
Ex-secretary of State/Waitress/Linda/Caroline: June Watson

Director: Max Stafford-Clark
Designer: Jonathan Fensom
Lighting: Johanna Town
Soun d: Gareth Fry
Music Arranger: Felix Cross
Dialect coach: William Conacher
Assistant director: Naomi Jones

2005-07-10 14:32:20