UK Pre-Election Theatre and Political Theatrics

With just four characters in the play the audience is left to guess just who they are supposed to stand for. Is this guy's name Tom or is he really a stage incarnation of Chancellor George Osborne? Who is this Hero/Jesus/Danny character? Could he be a saint — or just a terrorist? Does Tom/George Osborne have a connection with this Sonya/Margo, who is by the way completely bonkers or just delightfully quirky? And where is this entire situation going — on the one hand completely static, but extremely fluid on the other? 

The writer and director, Chris New, does not hide the fact that the play was developed around the four actors and with their active involvement, so in a way it is more like a 'guided improvisation', a collage of some dramatic sort.  

The play is said to have been altered constantly during rehearsals, and none of the actors had a clear idea of what the story was or what the play was about, which makes one appreciate even more their tremendous onstage passion. 

Politics Is About Controlling Narratives

Although, if it wasn't stated in the title, I wouldn't have guessed that this new production had anything to do with the upcoming election. Was it intentional, I ask Chris New?

"Politics now is about controlling stories, about controlling narratives. The Tory party especially are extremely good at controlling the narrative. They won't argue with a point, they'll just say that it's a different story. So, for example, David Cameron and the [recent TV] debates. When it looked like he was chickening out of the debates, he was saying 'No, I wasn't invited.' So, he'd just changed the story and it was hard for you to then work out who was telling the truth," says the director.

Similarly, in this short 45 minute play everybody has multiple stories, several character names, their narratives collide constantly with each other and you just don't know who to believe — it's just like watching the leader's debate on prime-time television all over again! 

And of course, the presence in the play of the 'George Osborne' character gives us some clue that it is unavoidably political, isn't it?

"Obviously George, being an establishment figure, believes at the end of the play that he can dominate this story, he can say 'Well, my version of this event is the definitive one, 'cause I'm the one who gets to say what happens'," confirms Chris New. "I was trying to think, what was maybe the one story that they [current government] wouldn't be able to deal with, wouldn't be able to twist or deny, or hide, and maybe this is it, maybe…" 

Mysterious Election

It's quite difficult to know what's going to happen with this election, "it seems so mysterious," as Chris New puts it. And similarly — with the narrative idea: all the polls are contradictory, so nobody can trust those and nobody seems to know what's going on.

"They [the parties] are constantly putting their version of events and hoping that people would agree or buy it." 

But one might say that it is much more interesting that way, more show-businessy, isn't that so? 

"The problem is that people want to see and trust the story. People want to have something they can believe in," says the playwright. He feels that here in Britain the narrative is so blurred, unlike in the United States where Obama had a very 'strong narrative' being the first black American president, which nobody could deny.

It's true that here, politicians — until maybe very recently — seemed all the same: a public-school educated, from-school-straight-to-parliament bunch of people, slightly detached from the real world — so the current apathy of voters is hardly surprising. I ask Chis New if he hopes his new play will help some people make up their minds and go cast a vote.

A Bit of Critical Distance

"I'm not sure. I kind of hope people would think of their ability to think about politics, to look through some tricks, certain tactics that the parties made use of to try to get people to give their vote. Hopefully, they could see through it, with a bit of distance from the media and the spinning of stories, and then maybe they can make a little bit more of an informed decision. A little tiny bit of critical distance would be good".

So, is he looking forward to election night then? 

"Yeah, I usually stay up and watch it, I'm a bit of a political junkie," concedes the writer/director. 

Are there any plans to alter the play's narrative, or at least the ending, since the production runs until May 12 with a 'special performance' on election night?   

"No, the play's not going to change, now that it's been put together, and the ending will stay the same. Unless there's some political earthquake, something really unexpected," Chris promises. I dare not ask what that might be, I'm pretty shell-shocked by the one I've just seen.