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plays
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later plays FOR THE WEST (UGANDA), written at the time of the
expulsion of all Indians from Uganda, this is a violent and comic portrait
of Idi Amin, as a product of our Western hegemony in Africa. Hastings
visited Uganda briefly in a dangerous time, and reached the north shore
of Lake Victoria. Run performed at the Royal Court Theatre, and later
transferred to the National Theatre. Has had a number of international
productions, and is frequently cited as one of Hastings’ best works. LEE HARVEY OSWALD: ‘A far mean streak of indepence
brought on by negleck’. A ‘Theatre of Fact’ play which uses Oswald’s
own diary notes. The central thesis of the play is that here is a man
who could never do anything on his own. And it remains even more likely
he was chosen as a ‘fall-guy’ by the real assassins of President Kennedy.
For legal reasons, this play cannot be presented in the States. It casts
serious character doubts on prime witnesses. Hastings visited Dallas
shortly after the shooting, and interviewed a number of people who lived
on Oswald’s supposed escape route. Hastings has made free use of the
entire 26 volume edition of testimony and exhibits from the Warren Commission
Report. However, the play has been performed from Tokyo to Mexico City
to Prague. First performed at the Hampstead Theatre, London. GLOO JOO. A farce about a West Indian on the eve of
deportation, and how he uses extra-marital devices to stay in this country
of his choice. Equipped with farce tableaux, and entirely in character,
the play has been criticised for its blatant use of racially motivated
language. Although this play has been performed in Trinidad, Kingston
and New York. The penultimate scene includes a liberal Rabbi, a non-stop
talking groom, an unlikely bride, and two customs officers who act as
even less likely witnesses to the final wedding in a Customs holding
shed at London Heathrow airport. The play transferred from Hampstead
Theatre to the West End for a long run. FULL FRONTAL is a seventy minute monologue, by a young
Nigerian who has been rejected by his Caribbean friends, and suffers
a terrible private tragedy of grief and betrayal. In an insane moment
of self-denial and despair he applies to join an extreme Right political
party. The logic behind the piece is Swiftian, and ultimately the end
has a moving spirit of human dismay. Frequently performed. It has an
unusual strength in its bitterness and anger. First performed at the
Royal Court Theatre. MIDNITE AT THE STARLITE, a five-hander comedy set
on a south London dance floor. Two girl dancers finally give up on their
male partners, and strike a chord for their independence. But the rules
of the competition insist two girls cannot perform together. First produced
in Birmingham, this particular play has had success with amateur productions.
A mix of bravura and sham glitter in a strangely enticing world. CARNIVAL WAR is an acute political farce played out
inside a police bus filled with under-cover cops set in the epicentre
of the Notting Hill Carnival. Ruin and mayhem besiege the comic figures.
First performed at the Royal Court Theatre. TOM AND VIV is a social tragedy. A portrait of the
poet TS Eliot and his wife Vivienne Haigh Wood. Researched in great
detail, the play has come up with material not previously known. Tom
has a deep longing for some kind of fossil society which represents
permanence and stability. He marries into an Edwardian family and discovers
a fabric of poisonous decay. However, for seventeen years, Vivienne
becomes a tireless partner and muse. Tom’s preoccupation with fame and
a certain woman in the States reduces their lives to a cold shambles.
Tom’s silent anguish is now a rage focussed on his wife. Eventually
bad medical advice and marital torture almost destroy Vivienne. There
is some evidence he colluded in confining Vivienne to a mental home
for the rest of her life. He did gain control of hers and the family
money. He never spoke to her again. And yet she had worked beside him
through the greatest creative years, and, indeed, a large part of their
personal tragedy is reflected in his work. Guilt and remorse has filled
most of his later years. Vivienne remains a tantalising shooting star,
ablaze but sure to fall. The play enjoyed two consecutive runs 1984/5
at the Royal Court Theatre. Performed and translated in thirty countries,
it also remains as a document of research interest to all. TS Eliot/Vivienne
Haigh Wood students. TOM AND VIV IN CHESTER STREET, LONDON, SW1.
The play appears to have under-lined an inevitable truth – it is virtually
impossible to study Eliot without including the mercurial and remarkable
Vivienne. STARS OF THE ROLLER STATE DISCO was written for the
Brixton Drama Festival one summer. The production was cancelled, and
a televised film was subsequently made by the BBC. A job agency is imagined
as a roller rink. Kids aimlessly circle the space. One boy is so immured
in the tedium of the life, even when he is found the perfect job, he
is too far lost from us, and he commits suicide. Trash music, junk food
and the hint of leisure facilities provided by the state. The play is
an angry essay on unemployment in the Thatcher years. THE EMPEROR is a devised piece of surrealism, jointly
created by Hastings and the director Jonathan Miller. Based on the book
by Ryszard Kapuscinski, sad and broken voices of servants in the palace
of Haile Selassie, the revered Emperor of Ethiopia, create a chorus
of mnemonic grief for an evil autocracy. Miller has devised a series
of boxes and trap-doors, and the company of five dressed in dark suits
and neat ties writhe and dance and assemble in tight knots to reveal
their bizarre infatuation with the Emperor’s iconic status. Perhaps,
too, there are hints of political subjugation in other countries like
Kapuscinski’s own Poland. UNFINISHED BUSINESS, a memory play. It begins with
an elderly man in a large country pile now transformed to a nursing
home. We learn that he was once the dangerous owner of this mansion.
The large estate belonged to a family revealed as nazi sympathisers
waiting for Hitler to launch his attack Britain (‘Operation Sea Lion’).
And the man’s secret plans with others to support the nazi take-over
is a central issue. There is cruelty and a sense of wasted years anticipating
a Third Reich future. A woman who once worked on the estate as a maid
visits the nursing home. She confronts the man with his past. A DREAM OF PEOPLE. A senior civil servant, Claude,
and his staff present a damning internal report on future UK pensions
to the Prime Minister. The PM responds with scant enthusiasm. Claude
in a moment of madness physically attacks the PM Knowing he is to be
removed from his position, Claude meets a number of individuals who
face tough sunset years with reduced support from pensions. Claude becomes
consumed by their problems. For reasons he can never quite make clear,
he arranges for them all to meet up in a London park one bright afternoon.
Although none of them know each other. Claude stands on a hillside with
his grandson. He watches the disparate group until they move away, some
listless, some nonchalant, and his grandson hauls at a kite above him
in the strong air. The boy asks Claude what he is looking at so intently? |
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