Guantanamo: Good Radio?

"Guantanamo", at the Studio Theater in Washington, would make good radio. That is because there is no action on the stage. The characters are either sitting or standing in place. There is no direct dialogue. They are all talking to the audience, either directly as if one-on-one, or directly as if making a public speech, or indirectly by mouthing the words of a letter they had written to a family member. There is no reason to have your eyes open, unless it is to distinguish the characters one from the other, but this could be done by other means, as simply having a radio announcer state their name in an undertone before each speech.

That is not completely a criticism. The play is about inactivity, the inactivity (or inability to take action) of "enemy combatants" detained at Guantanamo, and the inactivity (or inability to take effective action) of their family members or attorneys. So, the lack of action on the stage is appropriate.

The story is about U.K. citizens, Moslems all, detained at Guantanamo, and focuses on the life stories of five of them, presumably all innocent of whatever they could be charged as having done (in fact, they were not charged specifically of anything). The words are taken from official documents, presumably, and organized by the two playwrights, on British, one South African, into a two hour, two act play. It premiered in London where it played for over a year.

The purpose of the play presumably is to show how a democracy like the United States (and its ally Britain) could fail abysmally in protecting human rights, and innocent people can be caught in a terrible situation by happenstance. It therefore both describes the forest and the trees.

The problem (in addition to a fair amount of wordiness) is that it is impossible to grasp truth regarding these individuals one way or another. There is no way you can believe, or disbelieve, the stories you hear. Also, there is nothing "dramatic" about it: you know exactly where it is going from the beginning. It is a manufactured documentary play.

The acting was very strong, and most of the audience stayed awake during the full production (except for one elderly man who slept through it all leaning forward on his cane, and who was unfortunately in the first row, no more than three feet from one of the lead actors).

It is also hard to judge the political goals of the authors of this very political play. It may be more than your typical American liberal type opposition to the war. One of the authors, Gillian Slovo, was the daughter of Joe Slovo, the former head of the South African Communist Party and the only white member of the executive committee of Nelson Mandela's ANC in opposition to the apartheid government of the U. of S.A. The other playwright, according to her mini-bio in the program heads a Palestinian rights organization.