Enjoyed The Madness of George Dubya at the Arts Theatre tonight. Basically a stage version of Dr Strangelove, with some topical enhancements. The frame is, as the title suggests, a reference to The Madness of George III, and cabaret is included in the form of some songs by Tom Lehrer. It’s no surprise then, to find that in many ways it’s an old-fashioned production, a satirical revue of Sixties vintage. Yet it feels a lot more dangerous, more genuinely satirical than the institutionalised cynicism and cliched carping that passes for satire lately.
It’s apposite, of-the-moment, which is rare in a West End production of this scale. And it’s turned out to be a good business proposition, attracting enough American visitors over the summer to keep it running. It might even be in danger of becoming the next Reduced Shakespeare. Justin told me that the script gets frequent updates too, keeping it sharp and topical. In fact it’s a great opportunity to crystallise and preserve some of the best jokes about the whole Nine-Eleven, WMD, Afghan, Saddam situation, such as George Bush’s inability to say “terrorists” without it sounding like “tourists” or the unfortunate acronym of The War Against Terror. In this sense it’s a far more worthy vehicle than streams of instantly forgettable pub banter on The News Quiz, u.s.w.
It’s interesting to consider that Dubya’s run ovrelapped for a while with the Donmar’s piss-poor production of Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist. A true translation of Anarchist requires a lot more than an Italian-English dictionary — a whole movement and environment needs translating into a culture that can scarcely understand it. It needs to do as much as, probably more than Justin Butcher has done with the Stangelove material in Dubya. But this production of Anarchist ignored all that: it should have been like Lenin meets Orton, instead it was little better than The Thin Blue Line and other dull Police sitcoms. I don’t know what Simon Nye thinks he translated, but it wasn’t Fo. Dubya cannot hold a candle to the razor-sharp, political, satirical force that Anarchist must have had on its first run, in the polarised, expolosive political atmosphere of 1970s Italy - but it’s a lot closer to the dangerous, live, political theatre of Fo than the Donmar managed.
The opening announcement , in Dubya, is a good example: members of the audience with mobile phones are advised to keep them switched on, in case the theatre is hijacked by suicide bombers, necessitating tearful final phone calls to loved ones. Funny, and thoroughly chilling, as one sits in the stalls and looks sheepishly around: is that guy on the balcony a terrorist?I wonder how it would play in Moscow?
I was particularly impressed with Yasmina the cleaner and Al Qaeda mole - probably the most memorable creation, and the explosive climax she provides
is most surely a nod to Dario Fo. Her background story is a sharply-observed satire on privatisation, particularly the gaping flaws
that open up in security when government departments start outsourcing mundane jobs. Private companies that win the contracts
tend to show even less interest in following security clearance procedures than in paying their staff a decent wage; and since the workers are mostly
work-desperate immigrants, students and refugees, they’re not best placed to argue. I’ve seen enough of the results myself: bags of white powder go missing
from the Police lab within weeks of privatisation; unscreened sub-contractors (myself included) prancing around MoD buildings; rubbish bags that
won’t be collected unless you write “Rubbish” in Portuguese.
Only the last speeches, of the Arab ambassador and Yasmina, seemed jarring and out of place. These bore no obvious trace of Kubrick, Tarantino or Lehrer, so I imagine they are mostly completely Justin Butcher’s work. One gave us a lengthy potted history of Western relations with Iraq through the 20th Century, the other was a catalogue of all the ills of globalisation and US imperialism. I’m afraid this was probably hearfelt rather than satirical - the bitter pill that the humour helps us swallow. This is a shame, as these views - the noxious raking over of historical grudges as justification for atrocities and bad behaviour, and the almost comically optimistic demands made by hijackers and kidnappers - are no less risible than the nonsense of Bush and Blair. The ambassador’s delivered his long speech with power and passion, but it still sounded uncomfortably too much like being in church - but since that’s where I first met Justin maybe that shouldn’t be surprising.
I think Dubya’s worth seeing, for all the reasons I’ve elaborated, and more. It’s encouraging to see that theatrical satire is still viable in today’s multichannel cyber-culture. It’s definitely worth being reminded that the military and political obsessions with Communists and atom bombs in the 1960s and 1970s, are scarcely different from today’s rhetoric about rogue states and weapons of mass destruction. Plus ca change, indeed.
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