Aftermath at The Old Vic Tunnels

Aftermath at The Old Vic Tunnels

13 July, 2010
by: Naima Khan

Naima Khan finds Aftermath provides a louder voice for the human sounds of conflict. 

Of all the great things there are to say about Aftermath, nothing stands out more than the script. It’s 95% verbatim, and it could go either way. When you rely almost completely on the words of real people you risk a long-winded and un-theatrical production but Aftermath at The Old Vic Tunnels is graceful, evocative theatre.

It’s the result of some very clever choices by the creators Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen. Using the testimonials of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, they allow their characters to tell their own stories, which, collated in this way, form the story of a nation at a turning point. Aftermath reminds us that this isn’t history yet.

Being born of war and with its nature so political, Aftermath is placed in a category of theatre that you expect might leave you feeling guilty, if not heartbroken. But its core is human nature and so the stories that unfold are full of romance, and bad jokes: people are married, houses are built, babies are born and families grow – both before the war begins and as it goes on. The array of characters include an ageing Imam, a young couple, a wealthy doctor, Christians, Sunnis and Shi’as. Blank and Jensen have created a well rounded production that cleverly ties the stories of the past together with a simple, effective current narrative. With storytelling like this, everything hinges on the actors, who are all excellent.

The venue will split the crowds. If you’re near the front, the trains rumbling overhead heighten the atmosphere, the underground grows cooler and the intensity is heightened. But if you sit further back I imagine it’d be difficult to hear the actors. More importantly, these are intimate stories, chosen to forge a delicate connection with the audience; The Old Vic Tunnels might be too vast a space to achieve this in.

Some viewers – like the woman sitting next to me – will see Aftermath as a collection of civilian war stories. Having grown up in Australia amidst memories of Vietnam from the sizeable immigrant community there, she felt Aftermath to be generic, that you can change the name of the place and still have much the same stories of gratuitous violence, unanswered questions, lawlessness and a lack of consequences. I disagree. What Aftermath provides is a chance to hear something different among the onslaught of news images of the Iraq war. It’s those images that have become generic. With few theatricals on stage, director Jessica Blank gives a louder voice to the human sounds of conflict and the cyclical nature of war. She further brings home how civilians deal with the chaos and onslaught of hidden enemies that we rarely see. It won’t please everybody but it’s definitely recommended viewing.

Aftermath is part of LIFT and runs at The Old Vic Tunnels until July 17th

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Naima Khan