Someone who'll watch over me
"Someone who'll watch over me" by Frank McGuiness.
Reviewed by Lorna Robinson.
" I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood I know I could, always be good To one who'll watch over me"
As the theatre went black, the honeyed tones of Ella Fitzgerald were the first sounds to open the play, ebbing out across the audience with their silky dolefulness. We had been ushered out of the windy darkness of a February night into the intimacy of the small theatre set. The seats were at right angles to the stage where two people in shorts and T-shirts were lying on the floor. The dim lighting revealed little more as it fell over the faces of the actors and audience. We waited.
This was already a most unusual opening to a play. We had been asked to meet at the chapel where we were told that we would be joining the actors in situ and that there we should not applaud at the end, but simply allow ourselves to be ushered out just as we had been ushered in. Now, as Ella's voice faded out, the rattle of a chain was heard clanking fiercely onto the floor. One of the young men leapt up and began talking excitedly in a broad Irish accent about the Desert Island Disc show. He was explaining the premise of the show to his cell-mate, and we realised rapidly that it was only the vivid longing of his imagination that had conjured up the sound of her voice echoing eerily across the scene. The irony of the discussion fell hard on the audience and made a harrowing start to the play.
We soon learned that the cell was occupied by an American doctor, Adam (played by James Cavanagh), and an Irish journalist, Edward (played by Will Sowerby). They had been kidnapped in the midst of the civil war and conflict in Lebanon; Adam has been there some weeks longer than Edward. We witnessed their bickering and their boredom, their ups and downs. One of the most striking things for me was the normality with which they filled their hours, all the while under the shadow of uncertainty and the climate of immense fear. We saw their different approaches: the doctor, reserved and measured; Edward, talkative, with a dry wit which often rescued the play from its potential for unadulterated despair and horror at the situation it presents.
After a while, Michael arrived (played by Oliver Tilney), a university lecturer from England. We saw initially how the other two men taunted and provoked their new cell mate, but soon supported and grew to appreciate him. All three men, chained to the floor of the sparse cell, shared past experiences of all kinds: whether it was replaying the ladies' final at Wimbledon, evoking the last evening of freedom in Beirut, discussing favourite films or imagining new ones. These scenes were full of humour and pathos. The Hitchcock-style "Nun in Beirut" was a particular hit. At one stage, each man composed letters out loud to their loved ones. I found myself believing in and admiring their attempts to stay hopeful, to create a sense of connection with the outer world -- and when desperation and furious frustration did take over, I was swept along with them inside the storm.
When Adam was taken away and presumed dead, the effect upon the two men remaining was moving and devastating. They struggled to face their own feelings of guilt -- the agonising position of grief at his death combined with the acknowledgment of its potential aid for their plight is bravely raised by the play. It was not easy listening by any means, but the audience were led to question -- what would we feel in that position? What would we do?
Finally, after a wonderful scene where Edward and Michael imagine themselves flying a car over Europe, Edward is set free, and leaves Michael -- who weeps in the cell alone, curled up and despairing, as the play ends. I found myself asking "How could he leave his friend now? I would stay". But of course, we would all go. The play had a way of raising these uncomfortable questions and showing us the answers without attacking or defending human beings and their ways of behaving. People do what they can to survive, and this seemed to me to be the dominating theme.
The play is well-titled, and its actors brought out the ambiguity of the words excellently -- there was a strong sense of those who were watching over the men, with their unseen and threatening presence almost materialised at the other end of the room. Yet also conveyed throughout was the profound longing for someone benevolent to be watching over them, and the fear that nobody was. The frequent quotes from the Bible and Koran, both of which were lying in the cell, read by the characters through boredom, desperation and fear, resounded emptily around the room. Their aloneness was acute and haunting. On Christmas Day the distant jangle of Greg Lake's "I believe in Father Christmas" was played into the scene change, with its bitter attack on humanity and religion ringing powerfully in our ears.
I was wholly impressed by all three actors, their maturity and their ability to penetrate to the heart of their characters and bring out these difficult and powerful emotions. They achieved a play that left me laughing and smiling at many points, but also left a heavy residue of sadness and despair at the way humans treat their fellow humans. That both these responses were brought out without one marring the other is a tremendous credit to their performances, and that they leave me altered by witnessing the interaction of these characters reflects on the skilful crafting of the play.
