Recording recent history
By Mary Houlihan
Staff Reporter

Chicago Sun-Times
February 5, 2006

Plays with political themes have long been a staple on stages around the world. Aeschylus' "Persians," written in the 5th century B.C., is thought to be the earliest example of political satire. Shakespeare was fascinated by politics and wove it into many time-honored classics ("Henry V" and "Richard III"). Bertolt Brecht integrated economics and politics into his plays, including "The Threepenny Opera" and "Mother Courage and Her Children."

While more current playwrights such as Tony Kushner ("Homebody/Kabul") and David Hare ("Stuff Happens") have stuck to the usual technique of adding artistic license to current events, a slew of new playwrights have drawn word-for-word inspiration directly from transcripts of trials and interviews and created a modern brand of docudrama.

Several of these plays dealing with hot-button issues -- Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's "The Exonerated," Michael Murphy's "Sin: A Cardinal Deposed," and Jeffrey Bruner's "Katrina: State of Emergency," -- have been presented on Chicago stages.

Now theatergoers can add to this list "Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom," Gillian Slovo and Victoria Brittain's documentary play that revolves around interviews with the families of young Muslim men, all British citizens, who were arrested in Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001 and 2002 and transferred to detention camps at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo, Cuba, where they were held in a legal black hole.

"Guantanamo" makes its Chicago debut at TimeLine Theatre, a company whose mission is staging plays that examine different aspects of history. The more current nature of this play offers a new perspective for TimeLine, says artistic director PJ Powers.

"What interested me was that this play wasn't meant to be a '60 Minutes' piece exposing things at Guantanamo," Powers said. "Nor is it a political rant. What this play does is go to the source and put a human face on the situation."

"Guantanamo" was commissioned by Nicolas Kent, the politically minded artistic director of London's Tricycle Theatre. The company had already produced several plays based on transcripts of inquires or tribunals such as the Nuremberg Trial and the Bloody Sunday inquiry. The new play would approach the material in the same way the only difference being the playwrights would gather the raw material themselves.

Kent felt the writers were a good fit; both have long been involved with political issues. Slovo, a novelist, is the daughter of Joe Slovo, who was an adviser to activist Nelson Mandela during the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, and Ruth First, who was killed in a 1982 bombing widely believed to be the work of the South African police. Brittain, a journalist, has reported on human rights issues from many parts of the Third World. For 20 years, she was on the staff of the Guardian and is now a research associate at the London School of Economics.

"It was an idea that really appealed to us," Slovo said, from her London home. "We're both very comfortable writing about periods of great change mired in world politics."

Before they began the interviews, Slovo and Brittain read everything available about British citizens held at Guantanamo, and the unusual predicament their families faced. For advice in contacting specific families, they sought help from lawyers, members of Parliament and actor Corin Redgrave, one of the "lone voices" who had been offering the families support.

The playwrights traveled from London to Manchester, Birmingham, Tipton and Leeds, meeting families originally from Jamaica, St. Lucia, Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. At the time, the situation was very tense, and the families felt the media was against them. They had been receiving a lot of attention, not all of it good, and had reason to be suspicious of strangers knocking at the door.

"We wanted to be very uninvasive," Brittain said. "We didn't want to ask questions but just wanted them to say what was on their minds. I think the connection with the theater helped people trust us."

The most compelling interview was with Azmat Begg, a retired banker and father of internee Moazzam Begg. An Indian immigrant from a military family, Begg becomes the backbone of the play. While Begg had campaigned relentlessly for his son's release, others told their stories for the first time.

"One day they were getting on with their normal lives and suddenly their sons are in a place they didn't even know existed," Slovo said. "It was a moving experience to listen to their stories."

About halfway through the interviews, five of the British detainees were released from Guantanamo. Slovo and Brittain were able to connect with one of the men, Jamal Al-Harith, who had spent two years at the camp in Cuba. "Jamal's story is one of being in the wrong place at the wrong time," said a still incredulous Slovo. "He was catapulted into this nightmare where there was nothing he or his family could do to change the situation."

Throughout the process, Slovo and Brittain worked with a growing sense of disbelief at what was being done in the name of the war on terror. Today, all the British citizens have been released from Guantanamo. The playwrights suspect the British government pressured the American government for proof of guilt; when none existed, the British citizens were released. To this day, no reasons were ever given about why they were detained.

'Guantanamo" debuted at the Tricycle Theatre in spring 2004 and eventually moved to London's West End, the local version of Broadway. It has since been staged in New York and Washington, D.C, as well as diverse locations such as Sweden, Italy and a boys' school in Pakistan.

Slovo and Brittain continue to be surprised at its success.

"We thought it would be an interesting play that would have its three week run at Tricycle and then it would be over like most plays are," Slovo said. "I think the interest is partly due to the incredible amount of interest there is in the issue of Guantanamo, but I think it's also because the play really works on a dramatic level because these stories are so incredible."

Both playwrights also feel part of the play's success is the fact that the immediacy of "Guantanamo" has not worn off. More than 500 prisoners are still being held at Guantanamo, most for three years or more without charge under the U.S. government designation of "unlawful combatant."

"While we were writing the play, the British residents were released, and we had a discussion about whether we were going to continue," recalled Slovo. "We thought this would soon be a dead news story. But two years later, it's pretty astonishing that not much has changed at Guantanamo."

Added Brittain: "We now know that American lawyers are working very hard to create an awareness of what is continuing to happen at Guantanamo. We now know to what lengths the American military and the White House are determined to go to prevent due process. But we also know that these detainees are probably never going to see their day in court."