WHY TORTURE IS WRONG, AND THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM could be seen merely as an absurdist theatrical response to the War on Terror sparked by the attack on the Twin Towers. The real absurd response was the invasion of Iraq, proving that the real world is capable of producing greater fiction than the theatre.
No wonder one of the characters, Luella, a prolific play-goer, exclaims “You know, I don’t really know what normal is. That’s why I go to the theatre. Normal. It’s such a conundrum to me.”
The conundrum is given full theatrical conceit in Christopher Durang’s deliciously deranged drama which is ostensibly about post 9/11 paranoia, but really about the terrorisation of women by men.
WHY TORTURE IS WRONG, AND THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM is an examination of the conundrum of domestic violence as much as it is about foreign policy, homeland security and the culture clash between Islam and Christianity. The men of the play are appalling misogynists, and yet there are women who love them, or at least try to focus on the better aspects of their characters.
The play opens with Felicity awakening in bed with Zamir, discovering they have been married by a porn-making preacher. She has no recollection of the nuptials and suspects that it’s the result of being “date drugged”. When she suggests an annulment, he is quick to invoke the obey clause of the matrimonial mantra, eschewing any notion of love and honour.
Obedience to the husband is mirrored in Felicity’s parents, Leonard and Luella. Leonard promotes domestic life as epitomised in the 50’s TV show, Father Knows Best.
Unlike Robert Young in that cosy middle class, mid-west sitcom, Leonard feigns lepidoptery as a cover to his secret arsenal and control of a clandestine shadow government that comprises the saggy-drawered Hildegard who is unaccountably smitten by Leonard, and a Tourette’s sufferer called Loony Tunes.
As a coping mechanism, Felicity’s mother Luella “free associated until she was in some alternative reality where she didn’t have to think about anything. She comments that her life is akin to the play Pack of Lies where ‘Rosemary Harris played my part’.” She habitually invokes plays and movies including Dr. Strangelove. Indeed, her husband Leonard is not unlike Jack Ripper from that picture, convinced of global conspiracy against the United States.
A more than capable cast bring this acerbic absurdist play to energetic life. Alice Livingstone is superb as the theatre obsessed Luella, deftly daffy, precise in timing and enunciation, perfect in the pinch of pathos and poignancy. “I don’t find life precious. I find it terrifying.”, she confesses after describing her gun toting spouse as a pro-life proselyte.
Ainslie McGlynn as Felicity is terrific as the only seemingly sane person in the piece. A passing resemblance to the young Jane Fonda giving a little extra frisson when Peter Astridge’s Leonard launches his diatribe against the actress, lumping her with Hitler, Stalin and Saddam Hussein as the Twentieth Century’s most evil people.
Romy Bartz also displays delicious daffiness as hard-liner Leonard’s handmaid, Hildegarde, whose confusion with code names, coordinates, and twenty four clock times, not to mention wrangling errant panties, is comic elastic fantastic.
Annie Schofield impresses quadruply as narrator, crooner, bartender and Loony Tunes.
Director Melita Rowston stages the whole shebang on a triptych set with a centrepiece revolve that telegraphs the play’s metatheatricality.
In rebutting her mother’s recurring referrals to the theatre, Felicity says “I don’t go to the theatre any more, it’s too expensive”. A truth. Let us realise the fact that everyone is not free to go the theatre; much of it costs too much. We applaud too easily expensive productions, enchained by the notion that only wealth can give us something worth major attention. New Theatre constantly, as is evident in this production, presents plays worth major attention with the highest professional standards at an affordable admission. Missing this is wrong, and people should love it.
WHY TORTURE IS WRONG, AND THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM plays till June 28 at New Theatre, 542 King Street, Newtown.