Irish Timeswriter reviews Talking to Terroristsat the Samuel Beckett Theatre in Dublin.
Talking to Terrorists, Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin
The title of this rigorously constructed docu-drama, given a stimulating production by Calypso, comes from a chance utterance. Like everything in the text, the words were captured in a private interview, conducted and transcribed by Robin Soans, then skilfully edited into the structure of a narrative.
That these words belong to Mo Mowlam, former secretary of state to Northern Ireland, and are delivered with exactly the right blend of pith and gumption by Helen Norton, gives them an earthy authority: "Talking to terrorists is the only way to beat them."
The strength of Soans's inquiry, however, is not that it seeks to beat them, but to understand them: the allure and psychology of terrorism, its place in global politics, the consequence of its actions. (Much of this is stated in a needless introductory voice over.)
His ambitious assembly, although clearly angled for a British audience, has a global reach. It unites the voices of a former child soldier in Uganda, a Palestinian leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party and former members of both the IRA and the UVF, together with several British politicians, diplomats, victims - and one psychiatrist. It's quite a group session.
The problem that Soans faces, both with the scope of his investigation and the purported neutrality of the verbatim form, is that the wider he casts his net, the more he must exclude. If each point requires a counter-point, there are clearly glaring omissions: would an Israeli voice, for instance, have been so hard to include? But a play on terror faces much the same problem as a war on terror, tackling a concept without borders, unable to establish a precise goal. If this nags at Soans, it seems to unsettle director Bairbre Ní Chaoimh more, who invests too heavily in authority figures such as the psychiatrist, Edward (Chris McHallem), giving him free rein of Moggie Douglas's superbly designed space, however glib his manner. The play itself encourages more vigilance: no one here is without agenda or above scepticism.
Together with a final scene - passionate, heartfelt and mercilessly excessive - it is one of few imbalances in a production bound to stir and challenge. Drawing on the skills of a uniformly excellent cast - it seems unfair to single out Laurietta Essien, but there I go - Ní Chaoimh invests verbatim testimonies with the warmth, subjectivity and shock of humanity.
Nowhere is this better than in the complicated figure of David Pearse's former British ambassador Craig Murray, swirling whiskey around a tumbler while the fizz of his home life seeps into harrowing reports of torture in Uzbekistan. Nowhere does insight and compassion come with as much quiet dignity as Michael Grennell's Terry Waite.
Ultimately, Talking to Terrorists is made more invigorating than most verbatim theatre because of the potential of the stage. Within a theatrical space, at least, such testimonies can entwine and people come tantalisingly close to talking to each other. - Peter Crawley
Runs until Mar 31, then tours Dublin
