Plays, of course, are meant to be seen and not read, but it’s not always possible to see every play. They are not complete on the page, certainly in contemporary theatre where plays can be more collaboratively made than ever before. However, it encourages us (and hopefully others) to read more widely. For the third year, here is our #ReadaPlayaWeek initiative. And, as achieved in 2015, we shall try to choose 26 male playwrights and 26 female playwrights for our play choices. The plays from the first half of this year can be seen here.
Week 30:
Stella Feehily’s Bang Bang Bang (2011)
Inspired by workshops and interviews with aid
workers, journalists and doctors, Feehily’s play aims to expose the inner
machinations of humanitarian charities working in the Democratic Republic of
Congo. The effects of the work upon the social lives of the central characters
pulls much focus. Indeed we are led to believe that aid workers are habitual
drifters and idealists. Sadhbh entered into aid work as a means of escaping her
old life and childhood sweetheart in small-town Ireland, and she is still
running now, from the drudgery of settling down with her boyfriend, Stephen, in
Islington. Naïve Mathilde has notions of saving the world by day and partying
by night, while young photographer, Vin, aspires to international acclaim.
The characters are well drawn, the variety of
nationalities comes across in the language and individual quirks without
becoming stereotypical, and there are even a few tongue-in-cheek jibes at the
clichéd Irish ‘craic’ without sacrificing colloquial warmth and wit. However, I
found myself wishing to see more of the people being helped – not in an
exploitative way, as is hinted in Vin’s lack of perspective when photographing
a traumatised child – for a play aiming to be insightful into serious issues
and life in violent territories it seems to lack a local voice. One of the most
intriguing scenes involves Sadhbh interviewing Mburame, a notorious warlord. The
to and fro of their conversation reveals the complexities of impartial aid work
and the charisma embodied by the man we are told imposes widespread brutality. This
scene has the potential to be a pivotal moment of drama, a meeting with the
omnipresent threat, yet despite the frequent references to Mburame throughout,
because the scene is cut short, it feels muted and slightly anticlimactic.
Following an attack on the aid worker’s camp,
journalist Ronan seeks a scoop for the New
York Times. Here Feehily makes some scorching remarks upon the ignorant state
of Western media and blasé attitudes towards violence and welfare in far-off
countries. Sadhbh sums up this attitude when accosting Ronan; ‘I know your
angle. I guess a raped humanitarian will get many more inches than a raped
eight-year-old Congolese girl? Where were you when fifty-three women and girls
were raped in Masisi? Or is that too much of a norm to appear in the New York Times?’. These criticisms are
very welcome, workers like Sadhbh are well aware of the dangers they face, yet
the number of Western victims is infinitesimal in comparison to the hardship
endured by local victims. To make a tenuous comparison I indicate the panicked
uproar and intense media attention afforded to terrorist attacks in Europe and
the US, as well as the deaths of journalists and humanitarian workers held
captive by IS, while the many, many victims in the middle east are relegated to
the ‘in other news…’ bulletins, and refugees are shunned and dehumanised
through sheer ignorance.
While Feehily makes assured points, in focussing in
the majority on the personal lives of the aid workers, I feel she falls victim
to the very attitude she criticises. The Congolese victims are mainly talked
about rather than portrayed as actual people, and while young Amala points a
home-made gun and screams to be heard and recognised - ‘I am Amala. I will tell
all the stories’ – there remains a sense that these people have been sidelined.
This is never more evident than in Vin’s photograph, entitled ‘The Gun, The
Gun, The Gun’, winning the Ian Parry award, yet his subject, the small
traumatised child, remains unnamed, anonymous, and unheard, the hurt and
anguish experienced by the child merely prolonged and exploited by Vin in order
to satiate the thirst for self-satisfying liberal empathy from a safe distance.
Despite its shortcomings, the ambivalences and
contradictions in Bang Bang Bang make
for an interesting read and Feehily succeeds in inviting us to question
Western, liberal morals as the very subject at the core of the play presents
dramatic, thematic and social dilemmas for audiences and readers to ponder. And
this quandary is in no way easily fixed, as Ronan says, ‘You give me a story. I
bring it to the public. You get focus on Congo. Your organisation gets more
recognition. Mutual responsibility’. A stubborn knot that needs loosening,
Feehily’s play leaves me feeling frustrated, guilty, and intrigued.