THIS MUCH IS TRUE To 21 November.

London.

THIS MUCH IS TRUE
by Paul Unwin and Sarah Beck.

Theatre 503 The Latchmere Pub 503 Battersea Park Road SW11 3BW To 21 November 2009.
Tue-Sat 7.45pm Sun 5pm.
Runs 1hr 35min No interval.

The truth? The whole truth? Nothing but the truth?
Verbatim it is; Tribunal it’s not. In their intricately skilful cut-and-paste of interviews and testimony writers Paul Unwin and Sarah Beck place the 2005 shooting on Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube station in the context of recent terrorist bomb-plots in London, the successful one of 7 July and the subsequent failed attempt.

By giving voices to all parties, intercutting rapidly and having three cast members play a multitude of witnesses and participants in the shooting and police response, This Much Is True contrasts the calm, procedural detail of theatrical recreations of Tribunals developed by Kilburn’s Tricycle Theatre.

And while three actors (immaculately flexible in all but Scottish accents) play the rapid montage of campaigners, police and others, supplemented by video and still photos (not to mention the documentation covering Theatre 503’s walls), another trio emerge from the audience as cousins of Jean Charles.

They portray the anger, agony and grief of bereavement, when a completely innocent man was skilfully shot by police, in the only body area that precludes a suspect reflex-triggering a shot or explosion.

Doubtless ten audience members could leave with ten interpretations of all the evidence spoken. But, whatever’s to be said about subsequent procedures, it seems likely de Menezes died because a key police observer was taking a toilet break when he left his home in a block where terrorist suspects also lived. It’s the little things that trip-up established procedures.

There again, the First World War started because a chauffeur took a wrong turning down a crowded street. And prosecuting the marksmen would have involved overturning a principle on which many claims of unfair treatment rely. Yet none of this, caught out of the whirls of argument, lessens the impact when it’s your cousin who’s dead.

“This much is true.” The title words are spoken in the play, and imply how much can’t be confirmed truth. In this way the busy-ness, swift changes and occasional disruptions of Tim Roseman’s admirable production, played with a judicious mix of coolness and characterisation, capture perfectly the script’s detailed story, told through a confusion of conflicting views.

Cast: Amber Agar, Gerald Kyd, Justine Waddell.
Alex: Stefano Braschi.
Patricia: Alice da Cunha.
Vivian: Beatriz Romilly.

Director: Tim Roseman.
Designer/Costume: Paul Wills.
Lighting: Richard Howell.
Sound: Mike Walker.
Composer: Daniel Pemberton.
Video: Tim Bird and Knifedge.
Voice/Dialect coach: Martin McKellan.
Movement: Kate Sagovsky.
Dramaturg: Sarah Dickenson.
Assistant director: Emily Jenkins.
Associate designer: Lauren Smith.

2009-11-05 09:43:51