Stuff Happens: A Solid And Provocative Piece Of Theatre

There’s a moment in the National Arts Centre’s worthy production of David Hare’s controversial docudrama, Stuff Happens, when the Bush administration’s determination to launch war against Iraq shows its true, frightening colours.

It comes in a confrontation between U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney and Hans Blix, the Swedish diplomat whose UN team has found no evidence in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq of the weapons of mass destruction that are purported to threaten world peace.

Blix, in David Warburton’s excellent portrayal, is the courtly Scandinavian, whose own integrity will never provide the Bush regime with the false pretext it needs for going to war. But in Cheney, he’s confronting a smug thug who — in Paul Rainville’s entirely believable characterization — is pursuing his own bully agenda. So we have Cheney, secure in his faith in American exceptionalism, warning Blix that the U.S. will not hesitate to discredit the UN weapons inspectors if they don’t support Washington’s own dubious intelligence regarding weaponry that ultimately proves to be non-existent.

When Hare’s gripping play first premiered at Britain’s National Theatre more than a decade ago, there were those who questioned its accuracy. In those sections where Hare found it necessary to provide imaginary recreations of this shabby story, was he resorting to manipulative polemic? Was his script trustworthy?

Blix himself provided the answer after attending a performance. In a comment piece in the Guardian newspaper, he declared that Hare was accurate in his version of Blix’s momentous meeting with Cheney. And he suggested that Cheney, secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, were undeserving of any mercy from the playwright.

“I was impressed to see how Hare had succeeded in condensing over one year of national and international discussions and controversy into an electrifying play of a few hours,” Blix wrote at the time. And yes, there are many electrifying moments in David Ferry’s production for the NAC’s English theatre. But there are also times when you are conscious of the play’s length — of an occasional slackness that was not evident in the original production in London. But the play’s virtues remain secure; so does the thread of anger running through it. At its best, NAC’s commendable revival grips like a vice.

The deliberate high-tech artifice of the design seems right for a story built on lies — and represents a collective achievement by Gillian Gallow (set), Glenn Davidson (lighting) and Jamie Nesbitt (sound and video). Those insistent video projections and the spectacle of a giant neon-lit cross cutting through the darkness of the stage provide ironic counterpoint to those real-life characters we see bowing their heads in prayer before they proceed to manufacture their flimsy case for invading Iraq.

The play is excellent in its exposition, laying out the issues that preoccupied Washington and London in the months following 9/11, while gradually building its own indictment against the untruths and fabrications that led to the Iraq quagmire. As with Nicholas Hytner’s original production at the National, we have players in this sorry travesty seated on stage from the beginning and emerging from the shadows to play their duplicitous roles in what proves to be a disastrous Washington scenario.

At its best, this production of Stuff Happens delivers high-octane drama, often with a high emotional impact. But in directing the play, Ferry has also recognized its importance as a character piece, as an examination of the psychology of those determined to go to war. And Hare’s script does yield surprises.

George W. Bush does not emerge here as the shallow buffoon of legend; rather, in Stewart Hughes’ eerily persuasive characterization, he emerges as a canny manipulator. Call it a peasant’s shrewdness if you like, but take note of the moment on Bush’s Texas ranch when a blue-jeaned president easily stills the mutterings of Christopher Morris’s jittery Tony Blair, and — even more significantly — the quiet ruthlessness with which he deals with the uncertainties of Secretary of State Colin Powell.

It may be tempting to see Powell as the hero of Stuff Happens — but he’s too tarnished to justify such a label. In Andrew Moodie’s subtly drawn portrait, the best performance of the evening, Powell does emerge as a sad and complicated man, a senior cabinet figure who caves in to his colleagues and abandons his resistance to the invasion plans, He also suppresses his own doubts about the reality of Saddam’s purported weapons of mass destruction — and sabotages his own hard-won integrity when he appears before the United Nations with false proofs of their existence.

Performances are generally strong, with some actors taking more than one role. Hare is harsh on his fellow countryman, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Christopher Morris’s performance doesn’t soften this portrait, offering a muddle of blind idealism, political opportunism and nervous loyalty to a U.S. president who matter-of-factly treats him like a lap dog. Greg Malone’s self-admiring Donald Rumsfeld may seem almost like a caricature, but that’s probably unavoidable given the idiocy of many of the defence secretary’s actual pronouncements. Karen Robinson struggles to give Condoleezza Rice any inner life: her mannered performance offers little of the confident, articulate adviser we used to watch on our TV screens. But Andy Massingham admirably conveys the scary, single-minded tenacity of Paul Wolfowitz. And the supporting ensemble is strong, with Alex McCooeye showing his versatility in a number of small roles and Peter James Haworth making a big impact as a suavely cynical French diplomat.

In a program note for the NAC production, David Hare says he now feels vindicated in writing it.

“At the time, the theory that Iraq was essentially a war of opportunism — some unscrupulous politicians exploited 9/11 and the chaos it created in order to follow an entirely different policy agenda which they had long desired — was extremely contentious. And I was much attacked for t. But it is now accepted as orthodoxy. It’s become the standard historical explanation.”

And the undeniable strengths of this NAC production provide Hare with further vindication.

 

 

 

 

 

Stuff Happens

By David Hare

National Arts Centre English Theatre, to Feb. 21

Director: David Ferry

Set and costumes: Gillian Gallow

Lighting: Glenn Davidson

Sound and video: Jamie Nesbitt

 

Cast:

Laura Bush et al…………………………………….Lois Anderson

Janitor……………………………………………….Herbie Barnes

Iraqi VP et al………………………………………..Natasha Greenblatt

Dominique de Villepin et al………………………..Peter James Haworth

George W. Bush……………………………………Stuart Hughes

Donald Rumsfeld…………………………………..Greg Malone

Paul Wolfowitz et al………………………………..Andy Massingham

Cherie Blair et al……………………………………Amy Matisyo

Gerson et al…………………………………………Tawiah M’Carthy

Fleischer et al……………………………………….Alex McCooeye

Colin Powell………………………………………..Andrew Moodie

Tony Blair………………………………………….Christopher Morris

Dick Cheney………………………………………..Paul Rainville

Condoleezza Rice…………………………………..Karen Robinson

Hans Blix et al……………………………………..David Warburton