Play glorifies Gitmo prisoners, bashes US
Mood:  spacey
Now Playing: Robert Hurwitt, Chronicle Theater Critic
Topic: Odd Stuff

A child in England has terrible nightmares that her father is being held and tortured by Americans. To make matters worse, it's true. And not only for him, but for other British citizens: Two brothers, Iraqi exiles, picked up on a business trip to Gambia; a young man trying to travel through Afghanistan, arrested and held by the Taliban as an English spy, then released during the war only to be imprisoned by American agents and spirited off to Cuba. It may be tempting to cast a skeptical eye on the claims of innocence of the detainees in "Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom," the docudrama that opened Saturday at Brava Theater Center. Any competent terrorist should be able to concoct a good cover story, and it's painful to admit that our nation has become one of the world's most flagrant and unapologetic violators of basic human rights.

That's why "Guantanamo" is such an essential piece of theater. The evidence piles up inexorably through the testimony concerning several English citizens, detained, interrogated and abused for two to three years at the American base in Cuba before being released without ever having been charged with any crime.

The words -- drawn from letters, court filings, interviews and statements by the likes of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw -- are damning enough. Spoken with stark sincerity or pained irony by the strong cast at Brava, their import is even more powerful. As indicated by news reports -- about abuses at Guantanamo and other military prisons, ghost detainees, prisoners quietly passed to more torture-friendly countries, our government's intransigence about according due process -- what we see onstage is a small part of the story.

It's also just the English part. Conceived by Nicolas Kent and commissioned by London's radical Tricycle Theatre, "Guantanamo" was written -- or compiled -- by English journalist Victoria Brittain and South African novelist Gillian Slovo. It opened at the Tricycle almost a year ago, directed by Kent and Sacha Wares, and in New York not long after, playing in both cities for months.

Brava's West Coast premiere, the play's second American production, is essentially the same version, with Kent and Wares' staging replicated by New York cast member Steven Crossley (under the supervision of director Will Pomerantz) on Miriam Buether's original set. Six of the 11 actors are from the New York cast.

Brava also intends to follow the practice of having occasional guest celebrities take small roles at some shows (as Bishop Desmond Tutu and Tim Robbins did in New York). Which, despite its publicity value, isn't always a good thing. An underprepared Danny Glover read two key speeches on opening night, demonstrating commendable civic spirit but not exactly enhancing the performance.

The regular cast is more than solid. Harsh Nayyar is deeply affecting as the pained, puzzled and eminently reasonable father of long-detained Moazzam Begg (an engaging Joseph Kamal, desperately trying to maintain his buoyant optimism). Ramsey Faragallah is soberly devastating as the Iraqi exile whose attempt to set up a peanut oil plant in Gambia results in his long detention - - a man in a position to compare the interrogation practices of Saddam Hussein and George Bush, who sees little difference between them.

Robert Langdon Lloyd is a perfect combatively evasive Rumsfeld. Julia Brothers, Crossley and Joris Stuyck are quietly, sharply effective lawyers. Dion Graham is casually convincing as the hapless tourist victimized by the Taliban and U.S. Army alike.

The dry, sober testimony builds slowly and takes a while to settle in. Some elements register more strongly than others. But the impact becomes increasingly effective in this staging, a formal inquest in the foreground with prisoners arrayed in mesh cages behind. And the message is one we ignore at our peril. As Lord Justice Johan Steyn testifies, "In times of war, armed conflict or perceived national danger, even liberal democracies adopt measures infringing human rights in ways that are wholly disproportionate to the crisis. ... Often the loss of liberty is permanent."

San Francisco Chronicle ** Play glorifies Gitmo prisoners, bashes US