| Will the real Gary Owen please stand up ? |
At Sgript Cymru |
| Ruth is Stranger then Richard / Sgript Cymru- An Enemy for the People , Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff , July 23, 2006 |
Each play that this staggeringly talented writer makes is different. Perceptive, allegorical, darkly-humoured in Crazy Gary’s Mobile Disco. Reminscent, xx in The Shadow of a Boy. Eclectic, documentary, complex in Ghost City. And, now, in this take on Ibsen’s classic drama of political and personal responsibility, we have the political – or maybe the apolitically angry – and the witty with a play that ostensibly debates the state of the nation after devolution. Being critical through ridicule of those that govern, and of their ideology, has a long tradition and in theatre it’s a theme that we can find in various nations’ plays during the struggle for independence: in Wales the most controversial play ever is still Caradoc Evans’s Taffy which in 1923 caused riots from the outraged London Welsh when it opened at the (ironically-named) Prince of Wales in the West End and it’s a play which helped make its controversial and provocative author still despised in many quarters. I suspect there will be those who will similarly see Gary Owen as a traitor. Why ? Not simply because his three politicians are all cynical, devious and ruthless but because he has the temerity to present a nation that is actually worse off because of devolution, a failed experiment because there are simply not enough people of high enough ability to run a country. Enemy for the People is, of course, fiction, a play, and these are not real people – and neither is the evidence real statistics. In fact not once are we told that this small nation is actually Wales: it could be Ruritania or Illyria. Except that actually the characters are rather familiar. We can see in Terry (Steffan Rhodri), the First Minister, not merely the current holder of that post but the man who would have been king but for a moment of madness on Clapham Common and one of the elder statesmen of a nationalist party and various others. In the bombastic fixer and king-maker, Glyn (Ifan Huw Dafydd), there is not only the embodiment of corrupt Old Labour but phrases we remember from a man whose overconfidence lost Labour a general election victory. And in Sian (Claire Cage), the ambitious and gifted young AM, there is more than a touch of… well, so many bright young things. And while the statistics proving that people under a devolved government are poorer, sicker and thicker than under the previous centralised government are simply not true, there is enough of a ring of truth about them to make them credible: whether that is, as Terry claims, simply because the quality of politician is not good enough, isn’t the point here (although a theatre-going audience would undoubtedly agree that every Welsh culture minister has been irredeemably ignorant and inept - including the one who is thanked in the programme for her advice). You may think, nevertheless, that it weakens the plot – we would have preferred some identifiably real failings, perhaps – but this isn’t really satire, where criticism is based on fact, but pointed political comedy about (like Ibsen) truth-telling. And as such it works well. It is very funny, with crisp script and sharp direction from Adele Thomas for her ever-adventurous Ruth is Stranger than Richard company and Sgript Cymru. All three main characters turn in robust performances especially, maybe, Ms Cage, whose portrayal of the young idealist on a sharp learning curve benefits from some excellent timing and neat facial expressions. What didn’t work, I felt, was the honey-trap scene where Terry allows himself to be picked up by male prostitute Jay (Jonathan Floyd), with its obvious reference to Ron Davies’s downfall. But here the disillusioned Terry allows himself to become a figure of ridicule not for the sexual indiscretion (which is covered up) but because he confesses his lack of confidence in his peers to the general public and concludes by admitting that revolution is the only way to achieve change – and I cannot see Ron Davies ever saying that. The real Gary Owen, then ? Like any artist, he’s too complex to pigeonhole or reduce to agendas, but An Enemy for the People continues his exploration of lies and truth and the effect of duplicity on people – and benefits from a fine production that is engaging, funny and provocative. |
Reviewed by: David Adams |
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