Naima Khan and Sean Holmes discuss the renewed interest in Edward Bond and the what exactly his Chair Plays are asking.
No one could accuse Lyric Hammersmith of being as faddish as much of the London theatre world seems to be right now. They announced their productions of the Edward Bond plays Saved, Have I None, The Under Room and Chair back in May last year. That's a good three months before the August riots - a mention of which seems to accompany all talk of these plays since.
Artistic director Sean Holmes mentions the riots today before he goes into rehearsals of Have I None. “There's something more pertinent to the plays now” he says “not just because of the violence in August but because of the ways we reacted to it.”
While no one could have predicted the eruptions, we probably could have foretold how publications reported it and the lull in public engagement since. Although Bond's Chair Plays don't attempt to make any solid predictions about the future state of the nation, there is a plausible fluidity to this collection of plays (Have I None, The Under Room and Chair) which all concern themselves with the problems that lie ahead of us and the very human ways we react to them.
Famous for defending the violence in his plays and fighting censorship, Bond was part of the group of so-called Angry Young Men who ushered in a new age of playwriting that steered audiences away from the opulent entertainment of Noel Coward and Terrence Rattigan. This morning, Sean is particularly interested in the cycle of theatre as demonstrated by the return of plays from that post-war era and a renewed interest in their writers. “These writers have become interesting to a wider audience” he says, “I think audiences are open to seeing that revolution again.”
“But,” he continues, “it's not just because they're saying something that goes against the grain it's because they're saying it in a way that goes against the grain”. The cyclical nature of theatre as demonstrated by the recent interest in the likes of Bond and Arnold Wesker, signals a reassessment of theatre, its perceived limitations, its perceived audience, and indeed a reassessment of the topics these writers deal with in a way reminiscent of questions that were asked when they were only emerging as playwrights.
While Wesker's Chicken Soup with Barley spoke loudly about family and Socialism when it was first produced, it now speaks even more loudly about ideology and unity in general. Similarly, Bond is “asking us to think again” as Sean puts it, with his Chair plays.
In Have I None (written in 2000), which Sean directs, Bond takes us to a dystopian 2077 where we meet an aggressive, sparing couple and the stranger who interrupts them. It's the efforts of these characters to be human that Bond asks us to look at once more. Any heavy handed attempts at a futuristic design would detract from the script, Sean agrees and so favours the usual, bare set most commonly used for this play. But regardless of whether a viewer chooses to invest in the 2077 setting, “it's the dynamics between these characters that are so prophetic and believable.”
Similarly, in The Under Room directed by Bond himself, we meet an immigrant and the woman who hides him in her basement. We also hear, or re-hear the questions she asks herself, the loyalties she deliberates over and see the action she is willing to take.
Bond is famous for lauding the extremes of human behaviour in is plays, with The Chair Plays as with the Lyric's revival of Saved, he makes us question our response to these extremes.
Have I None and The Under Room run in a double bill from Monday-Friday and as part of a triple bill on Saturdays that includes Chair. (Until 26th May)
Image by Marc Brenner
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