Reviewed by David Spencer
Well, it's curious. Watching Prisoner
of the Crown at
the Irish Rep,
I was dead certain it was an Irish or British play that had been imported, but,
no, it's a play written by two Americans that was originally produced at the
Abbey (Ireland's national theatre) in 1972; the first play by Americans to have
a world debut there.
The
historical figure at its center, Roger Casement (Philip Goodwin), seems to have had a remarkable
impact on British letters and literature as an inspiration to such as Shaw, Conan
Doyle and Yeats—due to his exploits as an adventurer in the Congo—but when he
turned his attentions to securing recognition for an independent Ireland from
Germany, after the outbreak of WWI, the act was viewed by the authorities as
treason. Secret diaries of his—recording graphic homosexual encounters—were
exposed and distributed to further impugn his character, and after a proper
legal railroading, he was hung in 1916.
What's
curious is that, as controversially notable as Casement would seem to be, he
isn't even a blip on the radar to a US sensibility, yet this play about him, by
Richard F. Stockton, conceived and with additional material by Richard T. Herd, is written as if his story
might be well known to us. By which I mean, it starts out with the announcement
that he was the last British Lord to be executed for treason. Alas, announcing
Stockton's fate at the top leaches the narrative of almost all its
suspense—because implicit in the announcement is the thesis that he need not
have been (else why spend an evening on the procedures leading to his death
sentence?). The play thus takes on the burden of trying to rouse us by way of
moral outrage toward a pre-determined ending alone. But the manner of its cool,
documentary approach, in which the ensemble play multiple parts (even Mr.
Goodwin doubles
as his own swing-vote juror) is about as stirring as a homework assignment. And
that's despite Ciaran O'Reilly's clean and efficiently paced direction of a likewise
solid, if unremarkable, cast. Indeed, even the play's ending, in which a narrating
actor wryly comments that such injustices would never happen in today's enlightened
world, would they (nudge, nudge)? further distances us, because it leaves us nothing to
conclude for ourselves.
This is
the kind of "tribunal" play that the Brits—with such as Breaker
Morant and Conduct
Unbecoming—and
even occasionally us Yanks, with such as The Andersonville Trial—(all of which have been famously
filmed and/or recorded for television)—have notably done quite well, each of us
concentrating on the controversial figures germane to our nationality...but
this—I have to say it again—curious hybrid in which American dramatists
chronicle the British rousting of an Irishman seems to miss the mark by the
standards of several continents. And I wonder if it's because a first-hand
national sensibility isn't present; or because the attempt to emulate another
sensibility is inadequate? Then again...it could just be uninspired
dramaturgy...
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