|
|
 |
| |
Debating ethics of free speech
GLASS ROOM
Hampstead Theatre
THE ethics of history, law and free speech get a thorough examination under playwright Ryan Craig’s looking glass.
His Glass Room is claustrophobic, heated and simply constructed – a tale of a young lawyer with Jewish roots who defends an infamous Holocaust-denier.
We are taken into the tangled insecurities and moral crusades of an idealistic lawyer (Daniel Weyman), his father (Fred Ridgeway), a Daily Mirror agony-aunt (Emma Cunniffe) and the revisionist historian Elena (Sian Thomas).
The play’s premise is whether doubt, in historical terms, should license investigation and, in turn, free speech, however upsetting.
The paradox of free speech is that it is grounded on modern liberalism but what happens when that right endangers liberal society? Que the veil debate.
Elena – who claims among other things that the gas chambers were for de-lousing – does, until the interval at least, have a theoretical case.
Her character chimes of the historian David Irving, imprisoned earlier this year in Austria for denying the holcaust. His imprisonment elevated him from pantomime villain to martyr and lent the BNP a dangerous moral authority.
The idealistic solicitor Myles (Daniel Weyman) is burdened by the guilt he feels towards his father and refusing to embrace his Jewish consciousness. His defence of Elena, which transforms into a moral crusade, is exposed as hypocrisy.
Weyman was superb as the arrogant, stilted expert solicitor. He harbours insecurities like a young boy lost in the playground. But when Thomas messed up her lines momentarily he performed a seamless ad-lib revealing maturity to his acting.
But the performance of the night came from Fred Ridgeway as his tortured father Pete. Ridgeway stepped in at the last moment for the sick Toby Salaman. He put in an astonishing display of passion and pain in a key role.
Craig has littered his play with symbols, his script with paradox and paints his characters as hypocrites. A jigsaw and chessboard accompany the characters as they work through the conundrum.
But despite all the intricacies there is a blissful sense of simplicity to the writing that comes highly recommended.
Until Dec 23
020 772 29301
|
 |
|
|
|
|
