Naima Khan talks to the director of Vivienne Franzmann's newest play about the global questions of morality and belonging being asked by a Hampstead-raised survivor of genocide.
“There's definitely another play to be written about privileged adoption of the much less privileged” says director Simon Godwin after I not so smoothly bring up Madonna and Angelina Jolie during our conversation about The Witness currently running at Royal Court.
At the centre of Vivienne Franzmann's new play is the relationship between a father and daughter, heightened, strained and wrapped up in anxieties triggered by the unusual context of how they have come to find themselves in this universal, familial dynamic. Alex (Pippa Bennett-Warner), a survivor of Rwandan genocide finds herself a university-bound posh girl growing up in Hampstead with her photojournalist father Joseph (Danny Webb). He happens to be the man who took an infamous, defining image of that war featuring his now adopted daughter. “Privileged adoption practices are the context perhaps, but in this play” continues Simon, “we're invited to reflect on the ethics of war photography.”
“For Alex, there is the pressure of being involved with this famous photograph of genocide and as she discovers more and more about this image, so her relationship with her father is put under more pressure.”
The human subjects of famous photos, particularly political ones are often pulled into the debates that their pictures ignite, at least privately if not publicly. Most famously there has been the much speculated 'Falling Man' of September 11th and of course General Loan, the officer whom Eddie Adams captured shooting a Vietcong prisoner in 1968. Loan's association with the brutality crystallised in Adams' image followed him long after the war ended and similarly, Alex finds herself at university being discussed as part of larger whole. What's particularly poignant is her unwitting association. While Loan was an adult in '68 firing in the street, Alex's position in global debate is happenstance.
The scenario of being the centre of a larger debate is something that has periodically drawn focus to individuals who belong to communities that become flavour of the month for mainstream media and while their communities are generalised, their individual journeys become human interest stories. For Alex, explains Simon “it's the diverse reactions to that photo that triggers the first crisis she undergoes.”
“There's a focus on war photography and the morality about what photojournalists do,” he continues “is war photography always factual? Or to what extent is it the selective presentation of truth?”
Beyond the question of representation is one of the most paradoxical elements of photojournalism: the way we use it. While its intention is often to make us think, it can become so ubiquitous that it desensitises us. Images of famine in Africa and conflict in the Middle East can shamefully become banal clichés because of the way we consume them. “Rightly,” agrees Simon, “there's a question of communities being so relentlessly portrayed as victims that it downgrades their humanity. But how else are we to know of the suffering of others unless we're exposed to it? So in some sense it feels like an impossible dilemma to resolve. We need to know but what does knowing do?”
Coupled with these globally ambiguous questions are Alex's questions about her own identity, “is family something that is created by your adopted family? Or does your blood family still have a claim have on you?” he alludes to the Rwandan character played by David Ajala, who we see appear in Alex's life.
Compelling though the issues may be, there are a lot of potential pitfalls to staging another play about identity, particularly one that brings African genocide into a plush home in Hampstead. However, Vivienne's script, as Simon puts it is “thematically sophisticated”, linguistically “what I would call hyper-naturalistic” and there are real reveals. “She really grips us beyond a scenario that might feel sort of sexy and brings the world into one room so that there's a contrast between local, domestic interactions and worldwide massive inquiry.”
That complex setting is what keeps The Witness from being another 'identity play'. “What lifts the constant debate about the whole 'who am I?' thing that you encounter at university is that because of Alex we're forced to consider what happens if you happen to be that person, if you are that image others are picking at. And also what right do we have to try and decode an image of a person? Or, if you like, occupy another's suffering? Should that suffering remain theirs or can we consume it? What's that transaction about?”
I for one would be interested in Madonna's take on it but thankfully, that's a whole other play.
The Witness runs at Royal court Theatre until 30th June.
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