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Plays #2
Plays 2: Lear / The Sea / Narrow Road to the Deep North / Black Mass / Passion
The internationally acclaimed dramatist Edward Bond endures as one of the towering figures of contemporary British theatre. His plays are read at schools and university level. "Edward Bond is the most radical playwright to have emerged from the sixti
Lear - "Bond's greatest (and biggest) play … It is even more topical now and will become more so as man's inhumanity gains subtle sophistication with the twenty-first century's approach" (The Times); The Sea - "It blends wild farce with tragedy and ends with a sliver of hope … what makes the play fascinating is Bond's bleak poetry and social comedy" (Guardian); Narrow Road to the Deep North - "His best piece so far … No one else could have written it" (The Times); Black Mass, written for performance at an anti-apartheid demonstration: "A Georg Grosz picture come to life … the only possible kind of artistic imagery through which to speak of such evil" (Listener); Passion - a play for CND: "Mingles comedy and high anger with absolute sureness." (Guardian)
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 20, 2023
Lear: This is a very powerful, but brutal King Lear adaptation. Set in an uncertain time period, it seems to blend elements of the early modern with the contemporary (say, WWII, maybe). Lear is a tyrant who overworks the people, but when his daughters Bodice and Fontanelle marry Lear's enemies, they turn on their father. He loses the war and loses his mind, but when some soldiers kill a young man Lear is staying with and rape his wife, killing their unborn baby, the young woman--Cordelia--leads an uprising against the sister's tyranny. Much of the play is marked by graphic violence, Lear's suffering, and meditations on the nature of power and governance.
https://youtu.be/qeTB5G28MUI
The Sea: This is a play that really snuck up on me in the end. For much of the play, I wasn't really sold on it. It seemed like a play that was trying to make a bunch of vaguely philosophical points, but the philosophy wasn't coalescing in any interesting way. It seemed like various characters took various worldviews and there wasn't a lot holding the various threads of the play together, apart from these eccentric characters all living in this small town. There's the draper, who is convinced that aliens are invading the world via the sea along their coastline--and he's convinced a small number of followers who all become increasingly paranoid. Then there's the haughty upper-middle class woman whose convinced that her domineering control of those around her is a positive service she renders for them. Then there are a number of more minor characters who have their own views and perspectives, but again there doesn't seem to be much that holds the play together. But in the final scene things seem to coalesce into an almost existential statement about the nature of life and existence. Evens, a old drunk who lives in a shack on the beach, makes a speech about how life finds a way to survive and to grow and to spread, even growing and spreading into forms that come close to destroying life. What it seems the play is ultimately concerned with is the psychological struggle of existing in a universe that's in a constant cycle of creation and destruction.
https://youtu.be/OLcBKOYEjSQ
Narrow Road to the Deep North: As a conceptual play about the arbitrariness and changeability of power, this is a fine play. Each of the major forces competing for control of this city (ostensibly) in southern Japan uses violence, manipulation, Machiavellian tactics, etc. As a historical play, this is a huge mess. First, it's listed as set in Japan sometime between the 16th and 19th centuries, as though there were no changes to Japanese culture across those periods. The poet Basho is a central character--but this Basho has spent thirty years in the "deep north," whereas the real Basho went to Honshu for about half a year. Basho also lived during the Edo Period, when Japan was isolated from contact with the outside world, but in this play he has met a British commodore and his sister (maybe lover, which Basho suspects), whom Basho then invites into southern Japan to overthrown the brutal ruler of the city. Additionally, when the defeated ruler of the city flees north, he just so happens to meet an Arab trader selling guns. It's also worth noting that among the original cast list, there was not a single Japanese sounding name for a play in which virtually all of the characters are Japanese. I know it was 1968 when this play premiered, but seriously, this is some insensitive, colonialist bullshit.
https://youtu.be/0IUjacIHcOk
Black Mass: This play is a critique of South Africa's apartheid state, relying primarily on satire. The Prime Minister is at church, complaining about the difficulties of his job while receiving communion, when an inspector comes in an announces that there's a group of protestors outside that the soldiers are going to deal with. He then takes rifles out from under the altar, suggesting the intertwining of state religion and state violence. The inspector goes out and gun shots are heard, which the PM and priest pretend not to hear, then the inspector comes in and reports that they've killed 69 protestors--in language couched in sporting terminology because the soldiers have treated this as a game. The bit that doesn't make sense is that Christ comes down off the cross in a moment when everyone else is offstage, and he poisons the communion wine, which kills the PM. Why does he do this, rather un-Christ-like thing? No idea. The play makes no attempt to explain it, beyond it being a pretext for the priest to then kick Christ out of the church so that the inspector can replace him with a police officer in a fascist looking uniform.
https://youtu.be/44sY3G868ug
Passion: This is a satire for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, but it's an extremely blunt satire. I mean by that this that there's virtually no degree of subtlety to the "humor." The audience doesn't need to do any critical work or think at all about the mockery in this play, as it's all blatantly obvious. For my money, that's a poor dramatic technique.
The plot, such as it is, involves an old woman whose son was a soldier, but he died. So she goes to the queen to ask for him back. The queen speaks in a bizarre almost Alice-In-Wonderland type way where rather than actually expressing a position on any issue she lists a bunch of generic responses and invites her conversational partner to take their pick of the most appropriate. The queen is accompanied by an incompetent yes-man and a "magician" who makes a statue supposedly out of the dead son, and who makes a louder bomb than their enemies' bomb. The queen deploys the bomb, and unveils the statue, which actually consists of a crucified pig carcass. However, the enemy has deployed a larger bomb, which destroys England. The characters wander around the rubble, when Jesus and Buddha come in. Jesus explains he's there to be crucified and save everyone, but when he sees the pig on the cross he despairs of humanity's madness. The two divines leave, and the old woman finds the body of her actual son (blown out of its grave by the bomb), which ends the play with an anti-war poem.
https://youtu.be/qHwtd_DNfks
Original Review: I am still not sure I totally understand Bond's Rational Theatre, which he explains somewhat in the introduction to this collection. I am somewhat skeptical of claims to rationalism and objectivity, but as far as I can tell his work focuses on social engagement and socialist exploration of the corrupting effect of power. For instance, in Lear there are three seperate regimes--Lear's, his daughters', and a sort of revolutionary elite--all three of these regimes claim that they have the people's/country's best interests at heart, but they run the country as a sort of military dictatorship. I think the message of the play is that as long as government exists in the hands of a few people there will be exploitation, however, I don't think the play pushes for anarchy so much as a rational socialism based on a thoroughly implemented democracy.
My favorite of these plays though was Black Mass, which is very short. It deals with the situation in South Africa during apartheid (which is an area I am particularly interested in), through a brutal satire of the white ruling class and their casual attitude toward violence directed at black South Africans.
https://youtu.be/qeTB5G28MUI
The Sea: This is a play that really snuck up on me in the end. For much of the play, I wasn't really sold on it. It seemed like a play that was trying to make a bunch of vaguely philosophical points, but the philosophy wasn't coalescing in any interesting way. It seemed like various characters took various worldviews and there wasn't a lot holding the various threads of the play together, apart from these eccentric characters all living in this small town. There's the draper, who is convinced that aliens are invading the world via the sea along their coastline--and he's convinced a small number of followers who all become increasingly paranoid. Then there's the haughty upper-middle class woman whose convinced that her domineering control of those around her is a positive service she renders for them. Then there are a number of more minor characters who have their own views and perspectives, but again there doesn't seem to be much that holds the play together. But in the final scene things seem to coalesce into an almost existential statement about the nature of life and existence. Evens, a old drunk who lives in a shack on the beach, makes a speech about how life finds a way to survive and to grow and to spread, even growing and spreading into forms that come close to destroying life. What it seems the play is ultimately concerned with is the psychological struggle of existing in a universe that's in a constant cycle of creation and destruction.
https://youtu.be/OLcBKOYEjSQ
Narrow Road to the Deep North: As a conceptual play about the arbitrariness and changeability of power, this is a fine play. Each of the major forces competing for control of this city (ostensibly) in southern Japan uses violence, manipulation, Machiavellian tactics, etc. As a historical play, this is a huge mess. First, it's listed as set in Japan sometime between the 16th and 19th centuries, as though there were no changes to Japanese culture across those periods. The poet Basho is a central character--but this Basho has spent thirty years in the "deep north," whereas the real Basho went to Honshu for about half a year. Basho also lived during the Edo Period, when Japan was isolated from contact with the outside world, but in this play he has met a British commodore and his sister (maybe lover, which Basho suspects), whom Basho then invites into southern Japan to overthrown the brutal ruler of the city. Additionally, when the defeated ruler of the city flees north, he just so happens to meet an Arab trader selling guns. It's also worth noting that among the original cast list, there was not a single Japanese sounding name for a play in which virtually all of the characters are Japanese. I know it was 1968 when this play premiered, but seriously, this is some insensitive, colonialist bullshit.
https://youtu.be/0IUjacIHcOk
Black Mass: This play is a critique of South Africa's apartheid state, relying primarily on satire. The Prime Minister is at church, complaining about the difficulties of his job while receiving communion, when an inspector comes in an announces that there's a group of protestors outside that the soldiers are going to deal with. He then takes rifles out from under the altar, suggesting the intertwining of state religion and state violence. The inspector goes out and gun shots are heard, which the PM and priest pretend not to hear, then the inspector comes in and reports that they've killed 69 protestors--in language couched in sporting terminology because the soldiers have treated this as a game. The bit that doesn't make sense is that Christ comes down off the cross in a moment when everyone else is offstage, and he poisons the communion wine, which kills the PM. Why does he do this, rather un-Christ-like thing? No idea. The play makes no attempt to explain it, beyond it being a pretext for the priest to then kick Christ out of the church so that the inspector can replace him with a police officer in a fascist looking uniform.
https://youtu.be/44sY3G868ug
Passion: This is a satire for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, but it's an extremely blunt satire. I mean by that this that there's virtually no degree of subtlety to the "humor." The audience doesn't need to do any critical work or think at all about the mockery in this play, as it's all blatantly obvious. For my money, that's a poor dramatic technique.
The plot, such as it is, involves an old woman whose son was a soldier, but he died. So she goes to the queen to ask for him back. The queen speaks in a bizarre almost Alice-In-Wonderland type way where rather than actually expressing a position on any issue she lists a bunch of generic responses and invites her conversational partner to take their pick of the most appropriate. The queen is accompanied by an incompetent yes-man and a "magician" who makes a statue supposedly out of the dead son, and who makes a louder bomb than their enemies' bomb. The queen deploys the bomb, and unveils the statue, which actually consists of a crucified pig carcass. However, the enemy has deployed a larger bomb, which destroys England. The characters wander around the rubble, when Jesus and Buddha come in. Jesus explains he's there to be crucified and save everyone, but when he sees the pig on the cross he despairs of humanity's madness. The two divines leave, and the old woman finds the body of her actual son (blown out of its grave by the bomb), which ends the play with an anti-war poem.
https://youtu.be/qHwtd_DNfks
Original Review: I am still not sure I totally understand Bond's Rational Theatre, which he explains somewhat in the introduction to this collection. I am somewhat skeptical of claims to rationalism and objectivity, but as far as I can tell his work focuses on social engagement and socialist exploration of the corrupting effect of power. For instance, in Lear there are three seperate regimes--Lear's, his daughters', and a sort of revolutionary elite--all three of these regimes claim that they have the people's/country's best interests at heart, but they run the country as a sort of military dictatorship. I think the message of the play is that as long as government exists in the hands of a few people there will be exploitation, however, I don't think the play pushes for anarchy so much as a rational socialism based on a thoroughly implemented democracy.
My favorite of these plays though was Black Mass, which is very short. It deals with the situation in South Africa during apartheid (which is an area I am particularly interested in), through a brutal satire of the white ruling class and their casual attitude toward violence directed at black South Africans.
August 29, 2011
Read the first three anyway: good stuff
September 18, 2013
This also includes one of Bond's fascinating introductions, "The Rational Theatre," and his preface to LEAR.
October 25, 2014
Lear is a great play. Based on Shakespeare's play, but quite different.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews