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Author
Fermin Cabal
Translation
Robert Shaw
Director
Thea Sharrock
Design
Dick Bird
Performers
Emer Gillespie
Lou Gish
Diana Hardcastle
Gemma Jones
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Gate Theatre
Notting Hill
10
January - 5 February 2005 |
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FermĚn
Cabal (born 1948) is a playwright
from Northern Spain who was
one of the pioneers of post-Franco
Spanish theatre. He established
an enviable reputation in
the 1970s and 1980s with a
number of plays including
Esta
noche, gran velada
which won a Critics' Prize
in 1983.
Tejas Verdes is about Chile
not Spain and deals with an
inquisition into one who 'disappeared'
in the infamous Pinochet regime.
The title is taken from a
former sea-side hotel which
became a notorious centre
of detention and torture.
The play consists of seven
monologues: The Disappeared,
the Friend, the Doctor, the
Gravedigger, the Informer,
the Spanish Lawyer and the
Soul in Torment. The Disappeared
and the Soul in Torment are
the same character (played
with great intensity by Shereen
Martineau) as are the Friend
and the Informer (played with
equal, but different, intensity
by Diana Hardcastle). Each
monologue is about ten minutes
long and the whole play lasts
about 80 minutes.
In many ways the play is an
endurance test. Each character
has very long scene solo scene
containing between 1500 and
2000 words. Each character
is highlighted by concentrated
spotlighting, and in some
cases moves around and in
others is stationary. Each
character gives both a general
overview and a more detailed
account of a particular incident
from her perspective. The
cast is all female: each a
woman's perspective.
Meanwhile, the setting is
a forest in which the audience
is walking. The audience stands
for the full 80 minutes, at
first in complete, or torchlit,
darkness. Each character takes
up a stance in the darkened
space and proclaims her part.
Each character represents
both herself and a type caught
in the chain of events. The
eerie Doctor and Spanish Lawyer
are Pinochet-apologists who
attempt to set the record
straight ‚ an ominous mis-reading
of the Biblical 'the crooked
straight'. The Disappeared,
a young girl called Colorina,
represents all who were tortured
first and then executed by
being thrown out of a helicopter
over the sea. Her friend,
Monica, represents all those
so compromised by unendurable
torture, physical and mentoal,
that they can do no other
than betray their friends
and suffer the life-time consequences.
The Gravedigger just relates
the facts of her life and
the suffering of her husband
when his symbolic act of kindness
is discovered.
This is an emotionally harrowing
play even though the events
are well known and have been
narrated before. Even the
gloriously optimistic, Catholic,
ending with its Miltonic (no
irony intended here) triumphalism
about God's justice on the
Last Day, does not diminish
the inhumanity of man upon
man before the trumpet sounds.
But, the play proclaims, knowing,
feeling and not forgetting
will eventually bring its
rewards. The play's dust jacket
quotes Pinochet: "It
is better to remain quiet
and to forget. That's the
only thing we must do. We
must forget.î This is convenient
philosophy for one who needs
forgiveness and who would
prefer his deeds forgotten.
In this anniversary year of
the opening of Auschwitz it
is important to remember not
to forget, and this play makes
its contribution to our not
forgetting such human outrages
as the Nazis, the Pinochet
regime, Pol Pot or the Greek
colonels, just to name a few.
'60s liberalism may have died
in some quarters, '60s and
'70s concerns should not.
Given the importance of what
the play has to say, and its
direct and unequivocal way
of delivering this message,
the question arises how effective
the presentation was. First,
the actors. Each gave a gripping
performance. Surrounding the
others, both in the fact she
is the first and last scene,
and because she presents the
'Disappeared', is Shereen
Martineau. Her sparkling youth,
that radiates hope in the
final moments, is preceded
in the first scene by a kind
of innocent unawareness of
what will happen to her. Her
graphic description of the
degrading torture she is subjected
to, though delivered with
pain seems in some ways detached.
She, after all, is recalling
these events from a world
beyond. Shereen Martineau
captures this ambivalence
magnificently in a powerful
and moving performance.
Equally striking is the more
emotionally direct role of
her friend but informer. Diana
Hardcastle covers a wide emotional
and dramatic range from her
anguished reminiscence of
the moment she cracked and
betrayed her friend to the
resignation with which she
recalls the estrangement between
her husband and her son. She
wants to forget to give her
tortured conscience some respite,
and Diana Hardcastle's performance
easily elicits the sympathy
of the audience to allow her
this.
The chilling efficiency and
the plausible 'spin' on the
human abuses of the Pinochet
regime are also compellingly
portrayed by Emer Gillespie
as the clinical doctor, and
Lou Gish as the apologist
Spanish lawyer. The doctor
tries to minimise the gravity
of what was done to human
beings by asserting her medical
'superiority' as an expert
witness. She saw nothing of
what was claimed. Vaginal
violation is for her but a
cut and bruise. The lawyer
is Jesuitical. The regime
saved Chile from chaos. Pinochet
only took over at the last
minute and in dire circumstances.
He had been appointed by Allende.
If he had not done the few
corrective measures he had
to, Chile would have declined
appallingly and more deaths
occurred. Pinochet was tough
but necessary medicine. Both
Emer Gillespie and Lou Gish
present their characters'
point of view with persuasion
and chilling detachment. The
fact that the Lawyer is on
the phone with, by implication,
more important business than
having to explain the Pinochet-regime's
crimes is a telling touch.
Moments of symbolic realism.
At the centre is ordinary
human being doing an ordinary
job. Gemma Jones as the Gravedigger
has the longest solo scene.
She sits and tells. Solid,
ordinary, moved but sensible,
asking, as it were, what else
could be done, she poses the
central question of such a
play. What must we who watch
do? What could we who watch
have done? Gemma Jones is
magnificent in her rock-solid
concerned but self-justifying
narration.
The play's message requires
penance. The audience's penance
is standing in a quasi-forest
mostly in darkness for an
hour and quarter. Concentrating
on seven monologues makes
demands, and resembles less
a play than either a courtroom
with witnesses, or a lengthy
religious contemplation. The
play is catharsis in action,
but the purging is mental
not physical. I wonder whether
it is helped by the audience
being semi-ambulant. I tired
in places, but not willingly
as the play carries quite
a punch. My joints suffered
longuers, my mind fought hard
against them.
Some might argue that this
is just a political harangue,
not a play. The message does
not emerge from action or
dialogue. It is presented
straight in narrations. Yet
the play has a clearly symmetrical
structure, well-devised contrasting
characters and requires the
audience to remember and adjudicate
between the various characters.
This is compelling if tough
theatre. The audience wandering
like shades in limbo searching
for the obol of truth are
perhaps themselves intended
as silent witnesses and silent
converts to the justice proclaimed
so loudly at the end of the
play. Tough getting there,
but uplifting in the end.
Roderick Swanston |
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