AISLE SAY Toronto

PALACE OF THE END

by Judith Thompson
Directed by David Storch
Set and Costume Design by Theresa Przybylski
Canadian Stage Company
through to February 23
canstage.com

Reviewed by Robin Breon

Judith Thompson’s powerful new play, Palace of the End, was originally championed by the Epic Theatre Company in New York who had the good sense to commission the playwright’s talent in 2006 and put her to work on expanding a quasi-documentary monologue play about the Iraq war that was originally entitled My Pyramids. The monologue play, an increasingly popular form developed to great effect by playwrights such as Tony Kushner is a perfect structure for Thompson’s anti-war tour-de-force. The writing is sharp and colloquial over three cultures with the three characters all coming from different directions while reaching the same tragic end.

This production also anticipates Joel Greenberg’s Theatre 180 which will be presenting Stuff Happens, David Hare’s docu-drama of George W. Bush’s cabinet of blunders which begins on February 29^th.

Palace of the End opens with Maev Beaty playing “an American soldier”. Her role is based on the young army reservist named Lynndie England who was convicted of sexually and psychologically abusing inmates at Abu Ghraib prison after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. She is obviously from the southern U.S. by her accent and roosters herself around the stage with the redneck bravura and machismo that she so clearly admires in her male counterparts. The depravity of her acts coupled with the commitment of her cause to a lumpen patriotism gives us an insight into her own psychological brainwashing by the military that prepared her to commit such heinous crimes.

The second monologue features Julian Richings playing “a British microbiologist and weapons inspector” here clearly identified as David Kelly the government official who exposed the weapons of mass destruction hoax perpetrated by Colin Powell and other State Department officials when they presented their fabricated “evidence” to the Security Council at the United Nations in order to justify the Iraq invasion. Kelly died under suspicious circumstances that were officially ruled a suicide but some believe to be murder. As Kelly, Julian Riching’s witnessing from the grave (reminiscent of Irwin Shaw’s monologue play, Bury the Dead) gives powerful testimony and leaves the matter in doubt.

The dramatic coup de grace of the evening is powerfully delivered by Arsinée Khanjian as Nehrjas Al Saffarh, an Iraqi mother, teacher, political activist and communist who was arrested and tortured under Saddam Hussein’s regime and died along with members of her family when her home was bombed during the initial Gulf War. Khanjian develops her story with warmth and sincerity while consistently evoking a sense of urgent imploration as if to say: “listen to this next part – it is important!” And we do listen, not only to Khanjian but to all three actors throughout the play during a running length of 120 minutes (without an intermission) that flies by very quickly.

Watching these three actors in this politically complex and emotionally disturbing drama reminds one about the challenging art of the actor. Director David Storch has sensitively staged the action with the first actor, and then the second remaining on stage for the final monologue to be delivered. It is a very respectful approach and suggests that you don’t just exit when you’re through and wait for your curtain call when dealing with this kind of material. Playwright Thompson and director Storch have asked these actors to go deep into their psyches and show us the darker side of our nature; the truly shocking, depraved and sub-human level to which our nature can descend. It is a difficult thing to do every night, and for their efforts we thank them.

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