Talking to Terrorists

Talking to Terrorists is a play written by Robin Soans. It was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Bury St. Edmunds, England, on 21 April 2005.^[1] The play is written in the style of verbatim theatre where all of the dialogue is taken from real interviews and then recreated on stage. The play discusses the importance of resolving terrorism not with violence or conflict, but with negotiations and peaceful discussions.

Context

Robin Soans took a year to write Talking to Terrorists, he wanted to bring light to an important issue he discovered while undertaking interviews. He mentions in the preface to his play that a relief worker had arrived at a village which had been recently destroyed. When the relief worker talked with the villagers, the relief worker discovered that the villagers were not angry because they were hungry and homeless, but because they had a story that no one would listen to. The relief worker mentioned to Soans, "A huge part of what we call terrorism arises from no-one listening."^[1] Soans wanted to emphasise not just the unheard stories of former terrorists throughout the play, but he wanted the audience to hear the tales of everyone involved and affected by terrorism.

Plot synopsis

The play opens up with SS1 and her husband discussing terrorism as a whole, Phoebe and Edward then discuss children involved in terrorism and the politics of it. Phoebe leaves and Edward talks about the difficulties of being a young Muslim in Luton, which leads to a sort of flashback conversation between four Muslim boys named Momsie, Aftab, Faiser, and Jab. After Edward's conversation, the five ex-terrorists (formerly members of the Irish Republican Army, the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Kurdish Workers Party, the National Resistance Army from Uganda, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade from Bethlehem) discuss their stories involving where they grew up and how they first became involved with terrorism. The four men and one woman exchange tales about their early years, some went to prison the majority of their young lives, while others held meetings with their groups members to discuss issues in their communities and governments. Act One ends with the Bethlehem schoolgirl talking about her life in Israel around Christmas and how she feels hostility towards local soldiers.

Act Two begins with the ex-ambassador and his partner Nodira talking about the ambassador's duties. They recollect the first time the two met and the conflict of interests their relationship had on the ambassador's profession. The ex-ambassador also discusses the military's intelligence and their reliance upon information gathered through torture. He states his concern in a letter sent to London, which reads, “we are selling our souls for dross.”^[2] The ex-ambassador specifically states later that the evidence gathered under torture is incorrect and is morally wrong for London to support the American position by working with and using the American information. The play goes into a flashback of the ex-ambassador's earlier years when he discusses with Linda, Matthew, and Michael about London's information sharing, this conversation eventually leads the ambassador to come to the conclusion that it would be immoral to continue in his role.

Soans ex-Ambassador is based on verbatim quotes from Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, and his wife Nadira. Murray later used much of this material in his memoir Murder in Samarkand (2006). It was used again by Sir David Hare for his play Murder in Samarkand.

Character guide

·I.R.A. (An ex-member of the Irish Republican Army, Ireland)
·U.V.F. (An ex-member of the Ulster Volunteer Force, Ireland)
·P.K.K. (An ex-member of the Kurdish Workers Party, Kurdistan)
·N.R.A. (An ex-member of the National Resistance Army, Uganda)
·A.A.B. (The ex-head of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Bethlehem)
·Edward (A psychologist)
·Phoebe (A relief worker)
·Envoy (An archbishop's envoy)
·Amb. (An ex-ambassador from London, UK)
·Colonel (A British army colonel)
·Rima (a journalist)
·Nodira (A dancer)
·S.S.1 (An ex-secretary of state)
·S.S.2 (Another ex-secretary of state)
·Wife (S.S.2's wife)
·Caroline (a landowner)
·Jad, Faiser, Momsie, Aftab (Luton Muslims)
·Girl (A Bethlehem School Girl)
·Linda, Matthew, Michael (A foreign office committee)
·John (S.S.1's husband)
·Majory (A cleaner for S.S.1)
·Dermot (A bodyguard)
·Waitress (A waitress in Dublin)
·Carer or Ingrid (a caretaker for S.S.2's wife)

Genre

Talking to Terrorists is written in the form of verbatim theatre which consists of actors repeating the same words, movements, and accents that had been previously recorded in an interview or court hearings. This style of theatre allows the audience to see the characters as genuine people rather than fictitious creations. All of the characters in Talking to Terrorists consist of actual interviews from ex-members of terrorist groups, politicians, military officials, and victims of terrorism.

Style

The style of Talking to Terrorists is realism, since all of the characters, sets, and words involved with the play come from real events, places, and people. David Rush describes realism as, “a style that attempts to depict life on stage as it is actually lived by the members of the audience.”^[3] Realism in this play truly depicts life, since the events and characters represent real people and their stories. This sort of docudrama/verbatim theatre play feeds off of its ability to “live in a world like ours… [and] appear logical and believable.” Rush also explains that realism applies to three rules, the unity of time, place, and action to be perceived as believable.^[4]

Unity of Time: Talking to Terrorists involve actual dialogues from actual people that occur in a constant flow of real time, essentially meaning that all of the stories happen in real time, rather than the course of several days, thus creating the impression on the audience that all of the events are unfolding before them in the course of two hours.

Unity of Place: All of the characters come into the same space and more often than not, the same set, and by doing so creates a reality for the audience that the locations do not change randomly, and the audience is viewing a real space in front of them. Unity of Actions: The play tells essentially on plot from the perspective of several characters, although they all tell different stories, the play itself follows only one plot without any sort of subplot. Because Soans’ play follows these three unities, the play is considered realism in both a literal and technical sense.

Spectacle

The set is quite basic to focus the attention mostly on the characters and their dialogue. The only sets that are described in the technical directions are a typical house, “a bookshop inside a mosque”,^[5] “a coffee-bar in a Dublin shopping-mall”,^[6] and “a penthouse flat.”^[7] The sets all represent comfortable places for conversation to take place and for people to come and go. These sets create the spectacle of the characters and their conversations as the focus for the production, since the play concentrates on the theme of listening to others to build an understanding.

Rhythm

The play is set as a constant dialogue throughout the course of two acts with very few blackouts and scene changes. The majority of the play consists of a dialogue between the characters, as an obvious conversation with the audience, the few moments when this rhythm is interrupted is when Edward discusses young Muslim boys in Luton, and when AMB talks about his years in the ministry at which point the conversation can be described as a sort of flashback. The constant movement of conversations and characters gives the play a sort of slow but steady feel. There are never any real scene changes so the audience is treated to story after story about these real characters and events. This sort of rhythm may keep the audience enticed to listen to more as the events unfold through the character’s stories.^[1]

Language

The play’s language is derived from the conversation of several cultures, that all have their own subtle differences. Characters such as PKK and AAB use terms from both English and Kurdish like when PKK talks about his friends being tortured in a “patoz [otherwise known as a] threshing machine.”^[8] AAB acts as an interpreter for PKK and helps PKK understand that "patoz" in English means threshing machine, this language barrier makes the characters more realistic as actual people. Other characters have natural nuances such as the colonel's hesitance in his speech when he talks about uncomfortable subjects. “The… er… the… er… the penny dropped; these weren’t families at all… they were slaves.”^[9] Soans uses the colonel's language to illustrate the uncomfortable subject of war and its effects. Language is used to create realistic characters through their inabilities to speak perfect English and the inabilities to finish a sentence.

Theme

The best way to understand Soans’ theme for Talking to Terrorists is with the words of the first ex-Secretary of State, "Talking to Terrorists is the only way to beat them… If you want them to change their minds, you have to talk to them. They won’t do it very willingly because they don’t trust you, but yes, you have to talk to terrorists".^[10] Soans uses this dialogue at the very beginning of the play to honestly begin his production with the idea that you have to talk to terrorists to accomplish any sort of resolution. Throughout the play the ex-terrorist characters constantly mention that they only did what was right in their minds to protect themselves and their community. Soans also wanted to balance his view on terrorism by adding characters that repeat the words of politicians and victims to illustrate the theme that talking to terrorists is the only way to create peace and end misery for humankind. The other half of Soans’ idea is that terrorism is a vicious circle and several times it is mentioned that the ideas of terrorism came from terrorism, such is the case with the Bethlehem school girl who states in Act One that she hopes her Christmas will be better than the last few days and that the soldiers are beginning to pester her. It is revealed in Act Two that the Bethlehem schoolgirl was quite happy for the 9/11 disaster in America, she states, “When I first saw the Twin Towers on television, I felt sorry. But now I feel happy that they died. It's their turn to suffer. I could see many thousands of them die. I wouldn’t feel a thing.”^[11] It's thoughts like these, that human lives are expendable to justify revenge that lead into acts or support of terrorism. Ultimately Soans expresses the idea that terrorism is bad, but terrorists aren’t monsters, they're humans with a message and need to be talked to resolve any issue; meeting violence with violence only fuels conflict.

Sample Production history

Theatre Royal, Bury St. Edmunds ( 21–23 April 2005)
Oxford Playhouse ( 26–30 April 2005)
Malvern Theatres ( 4–7 May 2005)
West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds ( 10–14 May 2005)
Library Theatre, Manchester ( 17–21 May 2005)
New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich ( 24–28 May 2005)
Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry ( 1–4 June 2005)
Salisbury Playhouse ( 14–18 June 2005)
Liverpool Everyman ( 21–25 June 2005)
Royal Court, London (30 June 2005)

Bibliography

Reviews -http://www.onlinereviewlondon.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=219:talking-to-terrorists&catid=165:talking-to-terrorists&Itemid=247
-http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/talkterror-rev.htm
-http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/talking-to-terrorists-playhouse-oxford-491445.html
-http://www.outofjoint.co.uk/prods/reviews_t2t.html

Interviews http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/the-5minute-interview-robin-soans-writer-and-actor-403410.html
http://www.eventguide.ie/articles.elive?session_id=12043075360&sku=070317103739
http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/otherresources/interviews/RobinSoans.htm

References