Stuff Happens by David Hare

by David Hare

Stuff happens... And it's untidy, and freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.'The famous response of Donald Rumsfeld, American Secretary of Defense, to the looting of Baghdad, at a press conference on 11 April 2003, provides the title for a new play, specially written for the Olivier Theatre, about the extraordinary process leading up to the invasion of Iraq.How does the world settle its differences, now there is only one superpower? What happens to leaders risking their credibility with sceptical publics? From events which have dominated international headlines for the last two years David Hare has fashioned both a historical narrative and a human drama about the frustrations of power and the limits of diplomacy.Stuff Happens premiered at the National Theatre, London, in 2004 season and has subsequently been performed around the world. In April 2006, it was given its New York premiere at the Public Theater in this new, slightly updated text.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Politics, Historical Fiction, Theatre, 21st Century, War

Paperback Bunko

First published October 1, 2005

About the author

Sir David Hare (born 5 June 1947) is an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre and film director. Most notable for his stage work, Hare has also enjoyed great success with films, receiving two Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for writing The Hours in 2002, based on the novel written by Michael Cunningham, and The Reader in 2008, based on the novel of the same name written by Bernhard Schlink.

On West End, he had his greatest success with the plays Plenty, which he adapted into a film starring Meryl Streep in 1985, Racing Demon (1990), Skylight (1997), and Amy's View (1998). The four plays ran on Broadway in 1982–83, 1996, 1998 and 1999 respectively, earning Hare three Tony Award nominations for Best Play for the first three and two Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. Other notable projects on stage include A Map of the World, Pravda, Murmuring Judges, The Absence of War and The Vertical Hour. He wrote screenplays for the film Wetherby and the BBC drama Page Eight (2011).

As of 2013, Hare has received two Academy Award nominations, three Golden Globe Award nominations, three Tony Award nominations and has won a BAFTA Award, a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and two Laurence Olivier Awards. He has also been awarded several critics' awards such as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and received the Golden Bear in 1985. He was knighted in 1998.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ha...

Reviews

[Yourfiendmrjones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Making the fall of Colin Powell as the arc in this play was a very smart choice. If anyone lost their soul in this administration, it was Powell, if only by virtue of the fact that he was the only cabinet member who had one to lose.

[Parsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

متوهمان جهان متحد شدند و حمله به عراق را کلید زدند. بعد از گذشت سالها هنوز کسی نپرسیده و نخواسته که مسببان آن دروغ بزرگ "سلاح های کشتار جمعی در عراق" را محاکمه کند.
نویسنده با مهارتی مثال زدنی و دغدغه ای انساندوستانه و با شرافت، به خلق نمایشنامه ای دست زده که دیالوگ های آن را شخصیت ها در جلسات و سخنرانی ها و مصاحبه ها پیشتر نوشته و گفته اند.
کالین پاول، بوش پسر و تونی بلر و کاندولیزا رایس و ...

[Mahdi · Rating 4 out of 5]

یک نمایشنامه بسیار عالی درباره جنگ عراق؛ کتابی که بر اساس واقعیات و سخنان رسمی مقامات سیاسی جهان نوشته شده و با این حال بسیار داستانی و خوش خوان است

واقعا بعد از خواندن این کتاب بود که فهمیدم نقش و جایگاه واقعی یک سیاستمدار کجاست مخصوصا با رویکرد دومینیک دو ویلپن

هم برای اهالی ادبیات و هم برای اهالی سیاست بسیار دوست داشتنی و خواندنی است

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basic Plot: The political maneuvering behind the United States' invasion of Iraq after the 9-11 tragedy.

Wow. I am having trouble lining my thoughts up about this play. Normally, I like a bit of humor or action in my drama, and this really had neither (ok- there were a few humorous moments, but they mostly existed to break tension, and were few and far between). The play was still absolutely riveting.

Being an American in 2021 brings with it a lot of mixed feelings. There are good and bad things about my country, and while we have the opportunity/ability to do great things, we make a lot of mistakes simply because of who we are and how we view the world. Almost my entire adult life we were at war, until the troops pulled out of Afghanistan in August. In recent years, there has been more and more talk about how Bush and his Cabinet manufactured the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, getting us into a conflict with no clear goals and no clear plan for an end. This play illustrates all of it. The conversations of the characters are drawn sometimes straight from public record (we know the people actually said these things because they were caught on camera or on the record saying them) and sometimes are drawn from hearsay or extrapolation of events.

No country's citizenry *wants* to dislike the place they live. We want to be proud of our friends, neighbors, politicians, selves, etc. The actions of Bush and his Cabinet actively anger me. They make me question our government. Questioning in our society can be a good thing, as it can lead to knowledge and improvement upon the status quo. Crap like what went on after 9-11, especially since we as a people were mourning and angry, and thus easy to take advantage of, just righteously pisses me off. None of the politicians involved in the whole conflict look good by the end of the play. Not a one.

If you don't know much about how we got into the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, this can help tell the story, but a little prior knowledge helps. If you already know the basics, then odds are strong that, like me, this play is is going to make you mad.

[chickienuggies™ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Upping this from a 3.5 to a 4 now that I have a better idea of what happened

Pretty crazy revelations from this play, whose playwright conducted their own private research into the events following 9/11. It's pretty much a docudrama, with public addresses being verbatim and private discussions being the creation of the author. Funny thing is, you can't really tell the difference between fiction and reality because of how ludicrous it all is. Truly a terrible and stupid series of events that was justified by false intelligence. Could and should have been prevented, and it's crazy how a lot of people still think that the war on terror was completely justified (like my dad for example 💀). Very interesting to see how this also ties in with the current Israel/Palestine tensions

Some quotes that were actually said irl that are quoted/alluded to in the book:

Cheney: "Yeah, I did misspeak. We never had any evidence that Hussein had aquired a nuclear weapon"
Bush: "I don't know where [Bin Laden] is. I truly am not that concerned with him"
Rumsfield: "Stuff happens ... and it's untidy and freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here"
Blix: "They wanted to come to the conclusion that there were weapons. Like the former days of the witch-hunt, they are convinced that they exist. And if you see a black cat, well, that's evidence of the witch"

[Jennie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do remember the events surrounding the invasion of Iraq and Hare's play is a damning indictment of the players, from the breathtaking arrogance of Bush, to Blair's weakness and Colin Powell's grave misgivings about the whole undertaking. Whilst this play is a dramatisation of real events, and private conversations are necessarily fiction, it is clear that Hare believes Bush was going to wage war on Iraq whatever the evidence (or lack of it) regarding WMD. Actually, the play says far more about Hare's politics and take on events than it does about the events themselves.
This is not a very exciting play to read; it lacks dramatic tension on the page. It may be better to see it in performance.

[Claudia Trindade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stuff Happens was a very interesting read. Whilst I can remember 9/11 - I was 10 years old at the time - the events that followed are a blur. Whilst some of the play is fiction, the majority is factual and therefore all the events that have been covered in the play could very well have played out as described. This play just shows how a single person's greed and/or ego can start a war, impact millions of lives and set a country's economy into a depression.

[Sam Haddow · Rating 2 out of 5]

Robert Fisk, commenting on Colin Powell’s appearance at the February 2003 UN Security Council Meeting, said that Powell seemed quite unsure of himself, halting and unconvincing, as he delivered his now infamous fairytale justifying the US’s subsequent invasion of Iraq. Conversely, Fisk noted, when he saw David Hare’s Stuff Happens in New York, three years later, the Powell on stage was much more forceful, more charismatic, and a good deal more sure of himself.

I mention Powell, because Hare has maintained that – though much of this play (everything ‘behind closed doors’) is fabulation – in the interim between the premiere in London in 2004, and the revival in New York in 2006, he changed only one thing – the degree to which Colin Powell was or wasn’t complicit in the events that lead up to the invasion. Evidently, people who been involved, or had scrutinized the events closely, accused him of over lenience in his treatment of Powell, so he, in his own words, ‘changed him [Powell:] from a liberal hero to a tragic hero.’

Calling Colin Powell a liberal hero is a contention I don’t here wish to go into – the dramatic connotations of ‘tragic hero,’ however, are far more interesting. From Aeschylus to Miller we all seem to have our own interpretations of what is meant by tragic hero, and the last quoted – Miller’s ‘Chickens coming home to roost’ seems the most applicable. Hare’s depiction of Powell – most of which is in fact not taken from documentary sources – sees him as something of a serial worrier, an industrious and occasionally naïve apologist who nonetheless rattles his saber from time to time, when he believes he can get away with it. His dramatic purpose – chasing wild geese in a White House of silently leering cronies, each more in-the-know than he could ever hope to be – is rendered ultimately pointless with he utters a fateful ‘I don’t disagree’ to Bush’s eventual admission that he intends to wage war – second UN resolution or none.

Powell, then, is hardly Othello, but we can perhaps see him more in the light of the doomed salesman Willy Loman, grafting and whimpering in the outmoded grooves of his little existence. Where Loman was incapable of looking up and seeing the societal developments that would render him extinct, however, we get the feeling the Powell may well have known all along, and not looked up simply from cowardice. Tragic hero? It’s an interesting interpretation, though not altogether convincing.

In a way, approaching this play through anything other than a character by character basis seems impossible – as an audience member we bring to an interpretation of this text so many perspectives and so much bias based on what we do or don’t know, where we do or don’t stand, that the play-as-a-whole is more a (bomb?) site of innumerable derivations and contradictory assertions than it is a narrative. We would have had to have been sitting in some proverbial cave for years in order for it not to be, and Hare’s play is certainly not written to educate the uninitiated; though it does take pleasure in throwing in the odd snippet or two of little known ‘information’ to back up its avowedly left-leaning and unashamedly biased opinions.

That last was not an insult, or an attempt to debunk – I do not personally believe that any writing, however hard it may strive, is capable of obtaining complete objectivity, and I am more scared of writers or writings that falsely claim such a thing than I am of polemicists who wear their influences and opinions publically. Hare himself has said that he does not know what verbatim theatre is – a google or Wikipedia search for this term will reveal some or other definitions claiming a prevalence of documentary research, one might turn up Max Stafford-Clark’s oft repeated adage that it’s ‘like serving up your research raw – like a steak tartar.’ Hare’s confusion sprung from watching Stoppard’s ‘Coast of Utopia’ and taking personal objection to an extreme viewpoint held by an onstage character that he believed to be mirroring some obnoxious opinion of the writer’s own, before he found out that Stoppard had lifted the speech from the direct sayings of the historical character he was there representing. Hence – is ‘Coast of Utopia’ verbatim?

With ‘Stuff Happens’, there is so much on stage that simply cannot have been available to the writer – private conversations between the heads of state of six or seven countries, phone calls, classified information etc that common sense (should, at least) tells us that what we are watching is not a so-called objective assessment of things-as-they-happened but rather a subjective perspective on events as they are/were presented.

Again, I have no problem with this, and am much more comfortable with an honest liar than I am with someone who writes history and calls it ‘fact.’ So much of history is unknowable, and so much of the representation of history is affected directly by issues of interpretation, de facto narrativising of unrelated events, spatial and temporal dislocation of items under analysis and so on that the old objectivity has been the subject of a fervent historicist debate for decades, now, with an increasing number of historians prophesying the death of history in both the upper-case (metanarratives, such as Capitalism or Marxism) and lower-case (history-as-toil, the work of historians). Hare’s writing is, regardless of what issue one may take with it – and there is a lot here to take issue with, whatever your political leanings – nevertheless a vitally honest reaction to such assertions; a dishonestly personal reaction to events that have become so important to so many of us that their original meaning is now impossible to grasp.

Ethically, of course, the collapse of such high-minded principles guiding the ‘objectivity’ of history is a problem – Stuff Happens’ trump card is that it plays in an arena where dishonesty and disloyalty have clouded the view for so long that they are impossible to extricate. The counter argument would of course run to the effect that this makes it all the more vital to discover What Actually Happened. To which the answer, reasonably enough, is that people will continue to try (and sometimes succeed) to discover this – they will work hard, they will establish the facts as they go along, and then they will present their findings. And then they will realize that their findings are in direct contradiction to other people who have done the exact same thing.

In the meantime, we have texts like Stuff Happens – which, whether liked or disliked, will retain, I believe, the power and ability to provoke debate whenever it is revived, read or discussed. And whilst this in itself is to a large part contingent upon the vivid nature of its subject matter, it’s still an important role – one of art’s best, and something a lot of people would do well to remember.

[Abzû · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ne kadar tanidik senaryolar, ne kadar tanidik soylemler.

[Gayle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not enough Alastair Campbell!

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was an ok play. I mean, its approach was interesting and the quasi-documentary style challenged the way we think about current events and contemporary politics. But I just wasn't interested in the basic substance of the play. 9/11 and the build up to the Iraq invasion simply aren't interesting subjects for me.

This play does challenge us to think more deeply about what has become a political platitude--that politics is more show than substance. This play performs the disjunction between the public face of politics and the backroom deals, individual personalities/ambitions, and hidden agendas that so often are the real catalysts of policy. By dramatizing this disjunction the play asks us to rethink the performative nature of politics, both by drawing attention to the fact of shadowy political action and by drawing attention to our own knowledge of that shadowy action. In other words, the play asks us to reflect on politics, and then to reflect on our own act of reflection.

[Dennis Littrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A history play covering the recent stupidities

British playwright David Hare's play about the buildup for the invasion of Iraq by the United States, Britain and some token allies, centers on the public pronouncements of the major players, George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and others. Hare simply quotes Bush, Blair, et al. while constructing dialogue for the meetings that were private. He writes in an Author's Note: "Nothing in the narrative is knowingly untrue."

The result is an easy to read, easy to imagine bit of theater that underscores the mendacity and stupidity of our highest officials. How this would look on stage is left pretty much up to those who produce the play which opened at the Olivier auditorium of the National Theatre September 1, 2004. Actors are used to introduce the player about to speak, often serving as a narrative chorus. Thus, opening Scene Eight, "An Actor" says, "On September 17th the President signs an executive order authorising attacks on Afghanistan. Three days later he addresses Congress:"

And then the actor playing Bush steps forward and speaks his line. Because the action moves between the White House and London, between Paris and the United Nations building in New York and elsewhere, the audience needs to be clued in some way that the scene and players have changed. Not having seen the play performed I imagine that part of the stage can be lighted while the rest is in darkness so that props indicating the next scene are set up. And then the lighting is switched, directing the audience's attention. Or in some cases players could just step forward into the spotlight to deliver their lines. The effect of this kind of play, in which the scenery and settings are minimal, is to increase the importance of the dialogue which makes the play easy to read since little in the way of visual imagination is required on the part of the reader.

Colin Powell comes across as the protagonist, the man who compromises himself because he is caught between doing what he knows is right and his loyalty to his country and its institutions, especially in the form of George W. Bush, the President. Bush, contrary to the popular understanding in which is he often seen as the dupe of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al., in this play often seems to be a manipulator, off to the side observing the machinations of his cabinet, making sure they say what he wants to hear. This, I believe, is partly an artifice of play that results because Hare has so much dialogue from so many players, and partly because Bush is not especially articulate and so ends up listening a lot until he elects to make his decision about what is to be done. One can see that Bush imagines himself as someone taking careful counsel and then like superman becoming the man of action, as he terms himself, in the form of "the decider."

Tony Blair seems like a man who got himself into a difficult situation for no apparent reason. Condi Rice seems more like a servant to the president than a counselor. Dick Cheney is seen as totally Machiavellian, as an evil kind of man who cares nothing for the lives or feelings of other people. Rumsfeld is somewhat of an old bumbler who is caught up so much in his own mind with his own distorted view of reality that he continually tries to superimpose that reality onto others.

In the end the play does not depart much from the reality that we have experience in our newspapers, on television and in documentaries. The people responsible for the hugely expensive (both in terms of lives lost and moneys spent) fiasco in Iraq are seen as executive types carefully protecting their butts and crossing their t's and dotting their i's while at the same time blinding going over the precipice.

There are some exceptions. The French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin (now Prime Minister) is there to remind everybody of the folly about to happen while the arms inspector Hans Blix almost alone speaks frankly and realistically, and I might add, truthfully. Everybody else seems to look both ways politically-speaking before saying anything, and then often what they say is a falsehood, vacuous, or something stupid which will result in Rumsfeld eventually having to say (also stupidly), "Stuff happens."

The "stuff" here that happens is rather deadly, but Rumsfeld, et al. seem oblivious to that fact, alone in their deluded minds.

What fascinated me about this play is how easily it seems to have been composed from mostly public utterances. It is a kind of tragedy that seems to happen almost of its own accord given the character of the players.

--Dennis Littrell, author of the mystery novel, “Teddy and Teri”

[Hans Peter Madsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hvorfor gik vi i krig i Irak? Det spørgsmål får vi danskere aldrig svar på, for i 2015 besluttede Venstre-regeringen at nedlægge Irakkommissionen. Hvad der var løgn og hvad der var sandt, til hvilken grad danske soldater benyttede tortur, i hvor høj grad vi myrdede civile, og hvorfor vi overhovedet gik med i krigen, bliver aldrig besvaret. Men når politikkerne ikke vil tage ansvar for deres beslutninger, så må forfatterne træde til.

Derfor stillede den britiske dramatiker David Hare allerede i 2004 spørgsmålet: Hvorfor gik Storbritannien med i Irakkrigen? Og hvorfor gjorde USA? Skuespillet Stuff Happens har fået sin titel fra den amerikanske forsvarsminister Donald Rumsfelds svar, da han blev bedt om at kommentere det kaos, der i Bagdad umiddelbart fulgte den amerikanske invasion. Men Stuff Happens er også David Hares svar på, hvorfor der blev krig i Irak.

Skuespillet starter kort før 9/11, da George Bush' regering træder til. Allerede ved den første sikkerhedsbriefing kommer Irak på bordet og tanken om, at Irak har masseødelæggelsesvåben (hvilket de som bekendt ikke havde) bliver præsenteret. Det virker som om, der allerede er truffet en beslutning om, at Irak på et tidspunkt skal invaderes. Hvorfor er den beslutning truffet? Ja. Det er svært at sige.

Efter 9/11 bliver det nødvendigt for Bush at vise sin magt; at USA reagerer på angreb. Men hvordan? Irak kommer igen på bordet: det vil være nemt at invadere Irak og vælte Saddam Hussein, så hvorfor ikke gøre det? Bush ser ned på Clintons krig i Kosovo og forsøg på at løse Israel-Palæstina-konflikten. Begge er i Bush' øjne slået fejl. Der er ingen grund til at involvere sig i noget, der er svært at løse. Irak er, for Bush at se, nem at løse.

Hares tragiske helt er den amerikanske udenrigsminister Colin Powell. Han kan ikke finde ud af, hvorfor hans ministerkolleger er så opsatte på at invadere Irak. Det giver ingen mening. Irak er ikke nogen særlig trussel mod USA og havde intet at gøre med 9/11. Men hvis Irak absolut skal invaderes, så må det være med et FN-mandat i ryggen. Der trækkes en konflikt op mellem Powell og resten af regeringen: Powell vil have en international kollision, de andre ministre kan ikke forstå, hvorfor verdens mægtigste land ikke bare kan invadere hvem de vil, når de vil.

Samtidig følger vi den britiske premiereminister Tony Blair. Han vil gerne være med til at invadere Irak. Ikke fordi Irak er nogen trussel, men fordi han håber til gengæld at få USA's støtte til en ny Mellemøstenpolitik, der én gang for alle skal løse Israel-Palæstina-konflikten. Blair er en godtroende idiot.

For når alt kommer til alt, er pointen, gør USA, hvad de vil. Og hvorfor gør de så det? Ja. Det er ikke til at sige. Som skuespillets fortæller siger allerede fra første replik:

"The Inevitable is what will seem to happen to you purely by chance.
The Real is what will strike you as really absurd."

Storpolitik er absurdteater. Så selvom Stuff Happens er en tragedie, minder den meget om den britiske komedie In the Loop. Den handler også om, hvordan de storpolitiske kræfter beslutter sig for at gå i krig, og også her er pointen, at det ikke er til at sige. Det er ikke til at forstå. Der er ingen grund.

Stuff Happens består delvist af rigtige citater fra interviews, men størstedelen er fiktion; ingen ved, hvad der er blevet sagt i de private møder, hvor Irakkrigen er blevet planlagt. Hares bud på, hvad der skete bag lukkede døre, forekommer mig at være meget britisk. Engang var Storbritannien verdens mest magtfulde land, men nu er de en ligegyldig lillebror til USA. Det giver mening, at de fiktionelle forklaringer på storpolitik fra et land, der er vant til at have magten, men ikke længere har den, er, at der ikke er nogen forklaring; hvis verden ikke følger en britisk logik, må det være fordi, der ikke er nogen logik. Eller som skuespillets epigraf med et Jonathan Swift-citat siger:

"It is useless to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."

Sisyfosarbejdet med at forsøge at finde logikken der, hvor den ikke er, er meget underholdende og meget frustrerende. At læse Stuff Happens er lidt som at genopleve optakten til Irakkrigen (som jeg husker det - jeg var trods alt kun 8 i 2003) - ikke fordi Stuff Happens nødvendigvis viser virkeligheden, som den egentlig var (det tvivler jeg på), men fordi skuespillet meget godt kommunikerer følelsen af meningsløshed, som man i europæiske kredse følte, da amerikanerne, briterne og danskerne (+ mange flere) gik i krig uden anden offentlig grund end løgnen om masseødelæggelsesvåben, som allerede dengang tydeligvis var en løgn. Jeg ved ikke, om storpolitik i virkeligheden er absurd, og jeg ved derfor ikke, om David Hare har ret i sin portrættering af magtens inderkreds. Det har han nok ikke. Men for almindelige mennesker, der kun ser politikkernes løgne og deres ubegrundede nægtelse af svar på det egentlig ret simple spørgsmål om, hvorfor vi gik i krig, er følelsen af absurditet meget rammende. Og det er derfor, Stuff Happens er et godt skuespil. Ikke fordi det viser sandheden, men fordi det kommunikerer følelsen, vi magtesløse tilskuere får, når vi ikke kan få sandheden at vide.

https://endnuenbogblog.blogspot.com/

[Martin Denton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whatever else you may think about David Hare's Stuff Happens, the fact that he wrote a play in 2006 that takes a serious, challenging look at the Iraqi War and other recent events--that he put the subject on the table; that he tried to stir up a conversation among theater-goers about something authentically important--is cause for considerable admiration and acclaim. The first thought that went through my head when I saw this play was: where's the celebrated American playwright writing a serious play about the War in Iraq?

Stuff Happens chronicles the history of this controversial war, from its roots in the terror attacks of 9/11 and before, right up to the time of its writing. (I mean that literally: there's a line in the play that refers to something President Bush said on March 29, 2006.) The characters in this play are almost all real, famous people--Bush, Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, along with their British counterparts, Tony Blair, foreign secretary Jack Straw, MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove, etc. The story tracks how these men and women made decisions that led to the bombing of Baghdad in March 2003, and not at all incidentally how those decisions served to isolate Bush and Blair's governments from much of the rest of the world and, increasingly, from their electorates. (I should add that Hare does not shield the public from blame; at the very end of the play, an Iraqi man says, "A country's leader is the country's own fault." He's talking about Saddam Hussein, but the implication is explicit and worth considering.)

The play trades in political pow-wows and scripted media events that feel very familiar, the latter particularly so--we all saw a lot of Stuff Happens on the news. Hare tells us in a note that all of the public statements made by politicians within his play are verbatim, but most of the dialogue, whether his creation or not, feels authentic because all of the players have been given characterizations that jive with common public perceptions of them. (One might quibble that both Tony Blair and Colin Powell are presented with a touch more sympathy than the others; ultimately they're depicted here as principled men who compromise/sell out in order to maintain their positions of power.)

Indeed, one of the reasons that Stuff Happens doesn't work satisfactorily as drama is the lack of a single heroic figure at its center. For a while it looks like either Blair or Powell will emerge as the protagonist of the play, but the facts let Hare down; neither man manages even to rise to tragic-hero status. It's only at the very end of his play that the author decides to intrude on his drama by inserting some much-needed perspective; Stuff Happens is never more effective than in this tiny scene, when Blair is chatting with a dinner guest at some unnamed public function:

DINNER GUEST: How do you feel about the 100,000 innocent Iraqis who have died as a result of the invasion?
BLAIR: I don't accept that figure. I've seen that figure and it's wrong. I couldn't sleep at night if 100,000 people had died.
DINNER GUEST: But you can sleep if 50,000 have died?

But as I said, the real value of a work like this is simply to place the problem before the theater audience, to try to get a rise out of a war-weary public, to get us back to the energy level of a not-so-long-ago when millions of protesters took to the streets to try to prevent Bush's attack on Iraq. Hare expects the audience to laugh on cue at the George Bush jokes sprinkled throughout the play, but I think he's also hoping to stimulate a little engaged discourse as well.

[Matthew Kresal · Rating 4 out of 5]

What leads a nation to war can be the stuff of high drama, and controversy. David Hare's 2004 play Stuff Happens, focusing on the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, proved to be both when it first appeared. Reading it some sixteen years later, it certainly hasn't lost any of its power as Hare draws up both the record (as it then stood) and his skills as a dramatist to show just how the march to war occurred. Among the cast of characters are former general turned diplomat Colin Powell and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, both of whom find their convictions and efforts twisted by the likes of Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Not that Hare lets either man off the hook, both ultimately being reasonable men who sold a madman's war to an American public eager (and primed) for revenge. Hare offers asides from members of the public and press, including that of a Brit in New York City who, after expressing reservations about invading Iraq, is told that "you aren't American, so you don't understand. With a massive cast of characters and scenes set across the world, Stuff Happens reads more like a film than a stageplay, but it remains remarkable all the same.

[Andrew McAuley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stuff Happens is a strange play. It presents the events leading up to the 2nd Iraq war in the words of the decision makers, making it more like a history of peiced together quotes. The introduction tells us that everything printed was reported to have been said, although this is all largely framed by the voice of an unnamed actor in the play who acts as a narrator and charges the play with his own very strong feelings and opinions, which makes it all seem slightly less based than the author would have us believe. I'm not sure the Iraqi refugee character is supposed to be based on a real individual as his name is not given and therefore his part might as well have been spoken by the actor/narrator except that the author clearly intended the identity to pend weight to his own (justifiable) opinion.

It is amusing in places, and I remember much of the content as it happened at the time. It is a useful insight into the war on Iraq, written by an author who definitely has an axe to grind on the subject. I enjoyed reading it but I can't help feeling it might be a bit boring to watch on the stage.

[Dioni · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for Uni and was surprised to find it to be mildly enjoyable. I don't like war or war books, and am on and off about politics. The Iraq war is something that I never really understood, and it started when I was still a teen so it was mostly a blur of 'something that happens in that region'. I was baffled to find that people made a connection from Saddam to 9/11. It's hard to believe that that actually happened - and that it's not fiction! I had to Wiki my way a bit, which just shows how clueless I was about the whole matter. The play is really quite enlightening, knowing that it is based on real speeches and quotes, and all the characters are real. David Hare famously was quoted: "Nothing is unknowingly untrue." Obviously some scenes are made up, but it was imagined knowing the results that came out of them. The structure of the play itself is smart, as it examines why people do things the way they are, and condenses the real world events into a neat theatre that leaves you feel like you've learned something new about the world.

[Charlie Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wouldn't say David Hare was an especially captivating writer, but there certainly is a place for this kind of documentary theatre. This is a fascinating and well researched (although likely biased) account of the events culminating in the Iraq war. It captures the personalities of the big players succinctly and tacitly implies the intentions of people involved by examining key moments in transcripts and video footage. While it also adds creatively generated private discussions, as well as narration, these helped to tie the play together into a more cohesive whole. This is certainly the best play I've read by David Hare, though I prefer James Graham's political writing.

[Valerie (Pate) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great little piece. Infuriating and heartbreaking, but really great. Much like my reaction to the film Vice, it's shocking and yet not surprising.... makes me embarrassed to be an American... and yet is something that should be read taught in American high schools everywhere.
A war for profit with Saddam literally selected from a random roulette-wheel, while Bush simply shrugs and says he doesn't care about Bin Laden's whereabouts... it's maddening.
David Hare is a craftsman. I would really love to see the play performed.

[Mette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Glad I read it and good as an insight into what went on - I was a bit too young to have a political view on it at the time.

Some of the quotes and characters are pretty horrible, but yet it’s still very readable and I would say I enjoyed it.

I’m unsure about whether I think the use of actors is a lazy device or not - hard to tell without seeing it live, but it certainly makes it more fast paced and means you have a clear sense of what’s going on.

[Karim Elmenshawy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 9/11 attacks have had tragic consequences not only on its victims in the U.S.A but also on several countries all over the world. The decision of the Bush Administration to launch what has been termed as the "War on Terror" has ushered in a new era in contemporary world.

The play is based on historical events and real people. The dialogue is often taken from speeches , interviews , tape records , real name characters and photographs

[MrsB · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the set texts for the final module of my degree. It’s an interesting play and I’m looking forward to learning more about it and deciphering it a bit more. It is difficult at times to read about something which bring back powerful emotions. Act One Scene Six in particular sticks out in that regard.

[Pgchuis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, that brought back memories... I was up all night with a newborn baby in 2003 as American tanks rolled into Iraq.

I didn't have high hopes for this when I saw it was one of my set texts, but I thought it was excellent. It radiates anger and is (surprisingly? or not?) so relevant to current politics. I would really like to see this performed.

[Bridget · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly interesting take on these events that offers the readers a look not only a look at motives of those involved the decision-making but maybe even a look into why we chose ignorance at the time. A truly enlightening read.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

i do love making fun of politics and laughing about how we are forced to entrust our countries to individuals that cannot handle the burden the system puts on them. All in all a very funny book showing some of the most hilarious failures of the American contemporary politics (before Trump)

[Not Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

Play.

9/11 to the Iraq war from the U.S., U.K., and the U.N. POV. Historical. Reads more as a lecture than a drama, or a play for that matter. Uses actual public speeches and documents alongside 'behind closed door' situations. Large cast of characters.

[Adrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was enraged all over again by these events - possibly more as there were some sequences I hadn’t realised. I don’t buy Colin Powell as the conscience of the Bush administration and get that all scenes are fictionalised but - what a bunch of bastards.

[Ella Dancey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit confusing at times and a rich list of characters that sometimes merge together but an enjoyable read on the way in which the world, the international society and American society reacted in the Aftermath of 9/11

[Storm Crispin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely excellent - as a child of the era of the war on terror, the facts are not new but some of the rhetoric skipped adolescent me by. Hare's play is shocking, predictable and horrifying in similar amounts. And it got me hooked on verbatim theatre.

[Daniel Lammin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s been fascinating watching this play transform over the years from contemporary drama to a history play.