Theatre Review: Guantanamo (2004)

Theatre Review from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Guantanamo (New Ambassadors Theatre, London)

 

Political Theatre has the ability to transform crises into drama with impressive speed. Already the so-called War on Terror has become a hot topic in the chilly West End theatres of London. This year has seen at least four productions concerning aspects of the post 9/11 conflicts: David Hare’s Stuff Happens, Alastair Beaton’s Follow My Leader, and Embedded by Tim Robbins. One of the latest is Guantanamo – Honour Bound to Defend Freedom, which explores the detention of over 650 internees at the Cuban base by the US. Picked up in the preliminary stages of the conflict, the internees are unprotected by the Geneva Convention or US justice and are seen as neither criminal suspects nor prisoners of war – simply ‘detainees’.

   

Described as a “shocking and often deeply moving production” by the Daily Telegraph, Guantanamo is written by Gillian Slovo – daughter of Joe – and Victoria Brittain, ex-Associate Foreign Editor of the Guardian. Written is perhaps the wrong word, for the story, such as it is, is a compilation of extracts from statements and interviews with the Camps Delta and X Ray detainees, their families, and friends of those killed in the 9/11 attacks. We also have relevant politicians from the ‘alliance’ putting their oars in, generally to the delight of the audience.

   

Interestingly, the play has no clearly defined beginning or end. As the audience enters the theatre the actors playing the detainees are already on stage, pacing the boards as if wishing the audience to hurry up and sit down so they can get on with it, and remain on stage when the play has apparently ended, presumably to draw attention to the audience’s freedom and the detainees’ lack of it.

   

Lack is something we are confronted with throughout the play, particularly of dramatic intensity. This is highlighted when the orange boiler suits part for the entrances of Jack Straw and Donald Rumsfeld. Passably impersonated, it is as if Rory Bremner has put in a guest appearance to brighten a worthy but rather sunless production. The cast do well with their material but seem constrained by the form of the play. Sitting, lying, standing but rarely moving, their general immobility seems emblematic of the static nature of the play, and the effervescence of dialogue is flattened by the need for single long speeches.

   

In the end there were no performances as such to enjoy, only the words of the inmates. Though their stories may have been moving, they alone were not enough to transpose this hot topic into even lukewarm theatre.

NW

Hell's Alley (1986)

From the Summer 1986 issue of the World Socialist

Hell's Alley

(Dramatization of events preceding to, and from "Bloody Saturday", June 21 1919, arising from the Winnipeg General Sympathetic Strike)

Note: I have taken a few liberties with the events of this time in order to best condense the events and feelings of the time. For example: Secretary of the Seattle Trades and Labor Council, James Duncan, had actually made his address a couple of weeks earlier. And those of the Central Strike Committee as were arrested had been arrested days earlier. So Sam Blumenburg, soldier Bray and Helen Armstrong would not be present. However, Helen did take lumps on occasion and is useful in conveying sentiments of Strike Committee. The Socialist, Blumenburg, was actually a dry cleaner but rates being written in, not just for his classic (genuine) one-liner but to show problems of "enemy aliens". The secret police reports are of various times and sometimes condensations of more than one report to give the idea of the hysteria and paranoia that existed in some official circles. Likewise with government officials. The beating is as nearly accurately reproduced as possible. There is some controversy as to whether the workers did or did not destroy some of the interior of the streetcar, so I left it out. They did not, as some historians have claimed, tip over the streetcar. They tried, but it was too heavy. So are a lot of things.

Larry Tickner

Cast, in order of appearance:

COMMENTARY: Relates happenings and statements of others away from scene. As he gives wide cross-section of views of various elements it is important that his face not reflect conflicting emotions and should be blanked out with makeup. It is occasionally necessary that he be able to call on a booming voice that will shake the rafters.

"WORKERS": All somewhat apolitical, reflecting the general situation of the time. The common headgear of workers, at the time, was the bowler hat. But as such is not likely to carry the desired impression upon today's audiences it is perhaps better that they wear tweed or cloth caps. 

WORKER 1: Generally more than average social awareness. Experienced. Knows he is in a tough fight but prepared to hang in there no matter what. 

WORKER 2: Considerably less aware, but not lacking in courage. Slight foreign accent.

WORKER 3: Probably would have given in at the first blush if not carried by the tide of determination amongst his peers.

WORKER 4: Highly idealistic (more than the others). Still retains the original religious fervor. Prepared to act first and think later.

(Soldiers all in uniform)

SOLDIER BRAY: Active supporter of the strike.

OTHER SOLDIERS: As many as can be comfortably accommodated on stage. An attempt to attain an approximate balance between them and workers.

HELEN ARMSTRONG: Wife of socialist and carpenter union organizer George Armstrong. A socialist speaker in her own right. A proud upright woman. Femininely attractive enough, but dressing in such a manner as to neither hide nor exploit the fact.

SAM BLUMENBERG: Socialist, slight Jewish accent, but quite articulate. Fellow metal worker with Russell.

JAMES   DUNCAN:   President   of  Seattle   Labor   Council.   He   is   not unsympathetic  to groundswell  of need for industrial  unions  but is attempting to achieve it by reforming the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

MESSENGER BOY

ACT 1

(Open Set)

Market Square, opposite Winnipeg City Hall. Center stage is a raised platform suitable for speakers. There are a few chairs on the platform for the speakers. At extreme stage left and extreme downstage stands Commentary. He holds a scroll before himself. He can use it for cues, but it is preferred that he memorize his lines. He remains still when not speaking and when he speaks the "participating" players freeze, except where otherwise noted. (Note: All entrances and exits are made from amongst the audience.)

COMMENTARY: Saturday morning, June 21st, 1919. Market Square, opposite Winnipeg City Hall. The war to end all war is over. Wartime restrictions are still in effect. The Social Democratic Party has been declared illegal. The journal of the Socialist Party of Canada has been banned, as have the works of Marx and Darwin, and some of the plays of Gilbert and Sullivan. The men who fought four years for a "glorious new world" return to find it the same one they left — widespread unemployment, with all too familiar grinding poverty, aggravated by rampant wartime inflation. Nationwide discontent reflects itself, in Winnipeg, in the form of a six-week General Strike.

[Enter Worker 1. He briefly shuffles around at the base of the platform until he is joined by Worker 2.]

WORKER 2: Where's the Strike Committee?

WORKER l: Don't know. Guess we're a bit early.

WORKER 2: Storm bother your place much?

[Enter Worker 3]

WORKER l: Blew off a few shingles. Fixed them. But I sure don't want to see a storm like that again. 

WORKER 3: Blew a big piece off the roof of the Children's Hospital. What the hell? Strike or no strike we don't want to see children suffer. [Others nod in agreement] Me and a mate offered to fix it. Hospital

Director said he'd see us roast in hell first. 

WORKER 2: What the hell's the matter with them? Why do they hate us so? Don't they see all we want is a decent living? 

[Enter Worker 4] 

WORKER 3: Don't know. Say we're all Bolshevik or Reds or something. Whatever that is. Enemy aliens getting German gold to ruin the country. 

WORKER l: That's nothing. Been saying things like that about us for 20 years. Longer. Far as I can remember. Anything to keep our wages down. Been through it three times now. Try to get a union, decent wages. Each time, they use the police and scabs to break our strike — Courts to fine and imprison our union leaders. Forced to go back to work, at worse conditions. Alongside scabs. [Spits] 

WORKER 4:  But this time it is going to be different. We are better organized now. All workers together striking for each other. Worked last year. Got three wage settlements by threats of general strikes. 

COMMENTARY: With the workers properly organized there is nothing they may not successfully demand from the capitalist, by means of a general strike. 

WORKER 2: But without a general strike the metal masters beat the workers down within a month. That's why we had to support them this year. Make things better for all of us, too. 

WORKER 3: But maybe we should not have all gone out. It's been 6 weeks now and things are getting bloody tough. Don't know if there will be enough food for my family. 

WORKER l: Don't lose heart brother. The Strike Committee says that as long as there is one crust of bread amongst us we'll share it. We must be strong, to win. 

WORKER 2: Why do the metal masters hold out so long? Even they admit the men cannot live on their present wages. Why can't they see the justice of our case? 

WORKER l: We don't even get the minimum conditions just laid down by the League of Nations. 

COMMENTARY: I worked hard to establish my business. As a logger. In the sawmills. Worked to get an engineering ticket. I alone am best qualified when and whom to hire and fire and how much an employee should be paid. And no bloody Red is going to tell me different. 

WORKER 4: [In almost dreamy nostalgia] Remember, six weeks ago, when we came out? Labor Council called on all unions to support the Metal Trades. Eleven o'clock in the morning, as arranged, I took off my apron, put on my hat and left the job. The streets were full of people. 'Twas like a Roman holiday. Not just union people either. As many without unions came out in support of the metal workers' cause. Even soldiers changed over to our side.

WORKER 2: Even the Strike Committee was surprised. In the afternoon went to their favourite restaurant. It was closed, of course. [All laugh]

WORKER 4: Even police voted to come out.

WORKER l: Agreed with Strike Committee though. Stayed on to keep order. Even said they'd bust our heads if we got outa line. Never needed it though. Strike Committee cooperated to see everybody kept calm.

WORKER 3: [Apprehensively] But now they have fired all the police for being sympathetic to the strikers. Replaced them with boss's goon police.

WORKER 4: Dumb buggers are no good for anything anyway. Just say boo and they fall off their horses. Think we should run 'em outa town. Worse scab herders yet.

COMMENTARY: Sawing, sawing, sawing. What the hell we sawing up these old oxen yokes for anyway? We hire on to be policemen, not bloody woodcutters. [Pause] Don't know. Don't care. For six dollars a day I'll do anything. Don't need oxen yokes no more anyhow. Got tractors now.

[Immediately enter Soldier Bray. He is readily recognized and accepted by the workers. As he steps upon the platform other soldiers begin to mingle with the crowd.]

BRAY: Comrades, the soldiers are with you in your demands for collective bargaining. We also demand an allowance for returned soldiers.

WORKER l: How can we trust the soldiers? You have not always been with us.

BRAY: I know what you mean. Last winter some of us did act against workers. Beat up on foreigners. Even destroyed the Socialist Party's headquarters. We now know we were wrong. But we had been misled by newspaper nonsense that screamed about enemy aliens, red menace and such. Strikes financed by German gold.

COMMENTARY: Secret Police Agent 57, reporting from Vancouver, B.C. There is reason to believe Bolshevik agents have landed on our shores. 5,000 of them are training under arms in Canada and the United States. They have violet rays and know how to use them to blind people.

BRAY: [Continuing] Then the Union members convinced us your interests are our interests. That is why we are here today, to stage another parade. When the soldiers' support is shown the justice of our case will be seen and we will win.

[Most of crowd obviously restless and leaning towards action.]

WORKER l: [As he speaks Helen Armstrong mounts the platform.] But the Mayor has forbidden more parades. And the Strike Committee says we should avoid confrontation. [Quoting the Strike Committee] The best thing to do is nothing. Go to the beach. Make love.

HELEN: That's right Comrades, I beg you wait for the advice of the Strike Committee. They should have been here by now. I was to have met my husband . . .

WORKER 4: We can't wait any longer. It's been six weeks now.

HELEN: Wait. Here comes Sam Blumenburg. [As Sam mounts platform] He's on the Strike Committee.

SAM: Sorry I'm late. I was to bring a visiting speaker but he didn't show up.

SOLDIER 2: [In a badgering manner but the rest not too sympathetic with him.] You sound like an enemy alien. How do we know the papers aren't right? How do we know you ain't gettin' German gold?

SAM: [Not in any way intimidated, scoffingly laughs.] What is this enemy alien? And German gold? Workers see damn little gold of any kind. In my country it was very bad — very poor. Then the Canadian government says, Come to Canada, Land of Big Opportunity. Shows a poster; Woman with a nice white apron, waving to husband coming in from field. So I come. What do I find. All the good land gone. Even farmers who have it can hardly make a living. Long unemployment lines. Miserably low wages. Then I get a job with Bob Russell. He says he wants to make a union that gets good wages for everybody. Not just craftsman. I think, maybe this is the big opportunity government talks about.

SOLDIER 2: Russell's a socialist. How do we know you are not using the strike to make a revolution, like the papers say?

SAM: You crazy? Socialism could never happen that way. Sure Bob wants a new society. Me too. One with no money, no wages, everything free. But it can only come by majority action. Right now all we want is enough wages so we can live to see that day.

SOLDIER 2: Hah, what country do you come from?

SAM: [With all the confidence of someone who had dealt successfully with the question many times before] ... It is not necessary to ask where I come from. My face is the map of Palestine and my nose is Mount Zion. [All laugh and that ends the matter].

[Enter James Duncan. He takes to the platform as he is welcomed by Blumenburg.]

SAM: Here is the visiting speaker I was to meet. James Duncan of the Seattle Labor Council.

[A lot of booing and hissing from those in attendance. But sentiment not shared by Bray, Blumenburg or Helen Armstrong.]

WORKER 4: Yankee Craft Union Snob.

BRAY: Wait. Let's hear what the man has to say. [All quieten.]

DUNCAN: Brothers and Sisters. I am sorry I am late. Got a bad time from the border guards. Said if I'd been a day later they wouldn't have had to let me through at all.

COMMENTARY: Honorable gentlemen of the house. The legislation before you will permit us to scourge the country of the enemy alien red menace once and for all. It will permit us to deport any of them. Reds of any kind, even British born reds, without trial. And once again make our country free. [Speaking rapidly] House of Commons: First Reading — all in favor say aye. Second Reading: all in favor say aye. Third Reading: all in favor say aye. Senate: First Reading — all in favor say aye. Second Reading— all in favor say aye. Third Reading — all in favor say aye. Signed by the Governor-General Total time elapsed 40 minutes

DUNCAN: I understand your sentiments. They are not unlike my own. [As he speaks the crowd begins to warm to him giving each other nudges and nods of approval]. We have just had a general strike in Seattle for almost the same reasons as yours — low wages and refusal of the employers to recognize joint industrial bargaining. I am now on my way to the AFL Convention. [Boos and hisses]. If I cannot get them to reform their organization to embrace all workers I will join with you to help found one big union to represent all workers. [Enthusiastic cheers from all and applause from those sharing the platform] I wish I could stay longer and help your strike but I am late and must go to the AFL Convention. My heart is with you. [Exits to applause].

BRAY: Hear that, comrades. Our case is just. Workers everywhere are sympathetic to us. Many are striking in support for us.

COMMENTARY: Secret Police Agent 98 reporting from Ferni, B.C. You do not have to worry about the union leaders here becoming revolutionary. They don't want to lose their soft and cushy jobs.

BRAY: Vancouver is out, Calgary is out, Lethbridge, Edmonton —

COMMENTARY: Dear Mr Prime Minister, as your Minister of Labour I must respectfully advise that, this is not an opportune time to make a declaration in favor of the principle of collective bargaining as it would be grasped as an excuse by the strikers to claim they had forced the government and thereby proved success of the sympathetic strike.

BRAY: Saskatoon is out, Regina, Prince Albert, Brandon, Port Arthur, Fort William, Toronto.

COMMENTARY: Edmonton out two weeks — Vancouver a month.

WORKER 3: [Apprehensively.] But there is talk of getting scabs to run the streetcars, If that happens the strike is broken.

WORKER 4: Don't worry Comrade. [He uses this address for the first time, reflecting the increased pitch of anxiety.] We know how to look after scabs.

COMMENTARY: Secret Agent 67, reporting from Calgary: What the new union policy will be, will depend on how dangerous things may be to their personal liberty. Already their fear is making them hesitant and, as far as possible, they will tone down their program. I recommend reformed labor laws, which would meet with the approval of the Conservative labor element, aiming at the elimination of basic grievances and a satisfactory settlement to the returned soldiers and simultaneously the deportation of alien trouble makers. Decisive and concerted arrest of the leaders, a quick trial with a sentence making release or confinement dependent upon their future policy.

BRAY: Comrades, it is time to begin our parade.

HELEN: No, no. Wait for the Strike Committee [Blumenburg nods, in agreement.]

COMMENTARY: [Continuing] Unionism, rightly organized, is the very basis of national unity and strength. Especially will this be proved when the inevitable international complications ensue. With regard to this new movement, only two courses are open — either crush it ruthlessly or reform the labor laws of the country [while Commentary is finishing a boy messenger hands Helen a note and hastens nervously away.]

HELEN: [Upon reading the note shrieks] God! They've arrested my husband. They're arresting the whole Strike Committee. [In her sobbing grief she awakens to the danger to Sam.] Oh, Sam they'll be after you too. You have no family to hold you. Run!

SAM: No, I must stay with my Comrades and help the strike.

.HELEN: [Bray and the crowd showing sympathy and anxiety for Sam.] Don't be a fool. You're the only one on the Strike Committee without an English background. They are deporting foreigners who didn't even have anything to do with organizing the strike. You can't help us from jail or deported. Run .. . run! [Hesitantly and reluctantly Sam exits to the well wishes of the crowd.]

COMMENTARY: Sam Blumenburg escapes to the United States where he is active in Socialist and labor organisations for the rest of his life.

BRAY: Now the soldiers are in charge. We will begin our parade. [Steps from the platform to take his place at the head of forming parade.]

HELEN: No! No! Wait!

WORKER 4: [They are all in an ugly mood.] I'm bloody tired of waiting. [Helen runs beseechingly from one to another. Her helplessness is symbolized by lack of dialogue. Each pushes her gently but firmly aside.]

WORKER 3: Look! Here come the mounties. [Note: the ensuing confrontation with police is somewhat pantomimed. Crowd begins mocking and jeering. Mockingly hold their backs upright, stiff and hands in front as though holding horses reigns. As the mounties "go through" the crowd turns in unison to watch them pass (a bit of choreographic talent needed here). Helen, and to some extent Bray, are not out of agreement with the sentiments expressed but their apprehension shows as things begin to get more and more out of control.]

WORKER 1: Bloody mechanical men!

WORKER 2: Can't you understand the workers' needs?

WORKER 4: [As they pass through] Bloody scab herders! [All looking down the street.]

BRAY: [In relief] They're gone. Now we can begin.

COMMENTARY: [In a voice that rattles the rafters] COMPANEEE! Fall in! [Following lower volume but with military precisioness]. Ninetieth Winnipeg Rifles ready for action at a moment's notice, Suh! 100th Winnipeg Grenadiers, ready at a moment's notice, Suh! 106th Infantary ready at a moment's notice, Suh! 79 Cameron Highlanders, ready at a moment's notice, Suh! Twenty machine guns on mobilized units. Ready at a moment's notice, Suh!

HELEN: [Looking in direction of mounties.] Wait, they're turning. They're coming back. [Crowd all jeer as they part ranks as though horses going between them. As the eyes of the crowd follow the mounties away. Worker 4 picks up a rock and makes ready to throw it after the mounties. Helen tries to stop him but is brushed aside. The others aghast, at first, but then start picking up rocks and hurling them after the mounties. All except Helen and Bray, curse the mounties as they pass.]

BRAY: [As things get out of hand.] Let's not lose control of ourselves. Let's be orderly.

Worker 3: [In relief] They're gone.

WORKER 2: Here comes a streetcar.

[They all crowd around. Helen and Bray are quite helpless now. Worker 4 jumps as though to grab the trolley line.]

WORKER 4: I've got the trolley cord. It's stopping!

[Helen and Bray have the same feeling toward the scab but do not take part in what follows, for slightly different reasons. The crowd make actions that indicate pulling the scab out of the streetcar.  They make a cordon, ironically similar to the one the mounties passed through. They in turn take a punch at the scab and shout obscenities at him as he runs the gauntlet and runs away. There is a great amount of noise from crowd.] 

HELEN: Listen! The mayor's reading something. 

WORKER 3: Who can hear?

WORKER 4: Who cares anyway. Bloody boss's stooge. 

COMMENTARY: In the name of the security and protection of the King all herein assembled are instructed to disperse .. . [Drowned out by the noise.] 

HELEN: The mounties are returning. They have their revolvers out. 

COMMENTARY: [Military voice] At the READY . . . AIM . . . FIRE! [Pause] [regular voice] One bystander is killed instantly.

[All paralyze looking in direction of Worker 2 as he holds his leg in pain. Half crawling to extreme stage right where he lays down dying. Remains there for remainder of scene.]

WORKER 2: Hide me. No, do not call the doctor. I am foreign born. They will deport me. [Dies] 

COMMENTARY: Dead of gangrene. [Now all begin to jerk and fall as though being shot and clubbed and trampled by horses. Helen goes to the help of a half-dazed worker.] 

HELEN: Here Comrade. I'll help you. [Screams in pain as head jerks back from clubbing. Arises from momentary unconsciousness] Run! .. . Run!

[As commentary speaks all in unison go through a slow motion act of running. First stage front then left, then right, raising their hands in horror at what they "see" in each street.] 

COMMENTARY: Blockaded across each street are the special police. In the right hand of each is half an oxen yoke. In the other hand some have revolvers.

[All go through action of being clubbed, being shot; falling; getting up; stumbling in every direction.] 

HELEN: [Half dazed] Come Comrades. Hide in this alley. We'll be safe here. [All go to centre stage stage and crouch as though hiding.] 

COMMENTARY: Mommy. Why do people call that little street hell's alley? Come along dear. Don't ask such things.

[In a few moments they are startled by something at stage left.] 

ALL: The goon police!

[They all retreat to stage right but again are confronted.] 

COMMENTARY: At each end of the alley cordons of special police, clubs in hand.

[They all go through action of being beaten.] 

WORKER 4: [Going through action of fighting back]. Fucking bastards!

[But  he  is  clubbed from  one  side  and  then  another.   Crumples unconscious, as they all do, in tortured heaps.] 

COMMENTARY: Scourge the streets! Find them, find them! Punish! Punish! Punish! Beat! Beat! Beat! Law and Order! Law and Order! [Slight pause].

[As strikers begin crawling off stage helping each other, carrying the unconscious and the dead worker, Commentary continues.]

We return to work like whipped dogs. Work alongside scabs. Lose seniority. Pensions. Sign allegiance oath. [With vengeance] Sign! Sign! Sign! [Some exiting workers resentfully go through action of signing. Some spit in hatred.] Some are permanently blacklisted. [Slight pause] Troops arrive to take over the streets . .. Trucks with mounted machine guns patrol back and forth. But the streets are empty of strikers. Bloody Saturday is over.

ACT 2

COMMENTARY: Same qualification as Commentary in first act [could be same performer but recommend the part be divided.]

JUDGE: Complete with those mysterious robes they are prone to wear.

[Commentary 2 assumes the same position as Act 1. The judge is at his bench fiddling with papers as Commentary speaks.]

COMMENTARY: History books will largely by-pass the participants in the events of these days. Worse. Some will write in heroes who had very little to do with the struggle. This is not to say there were not key martyrs and heroes. There were. And their bravery and suffering matched any. But the genuine ones would not have had it that they were so heavily written in, nor that the rest be so easily passed over.

JUDGE: [Forcefully banging his gavel] Order in the court!

COMMENTARY: Many "aliens" have been deported. The vast majority of them are unknown to the strike leaders. Those of British backgrounds get a trial. As to fairness? The trial is by a jury. The jurists are mostly farmers with little in common with the accused. It is doubted, by many, that a similar jury could be found anywhere else in the country.

JUDGE: The seven of you: A.A. Heaps; Reverend Wm. Ivens; R.E. Bray; George Armstrong; John Queen; R.J. Johns; W.A. Pritchard, have been jointly charged on six counts of seditious conspiracy which we have spent these many weeks reviewing but may be briefly summarized as follows:

Count 1: A general form of seditious conspiracy to bring hatred and contempt to excite disaffection against the government, the laws and the constitution and generally to promote ill-will and hostility amongst the people and between classes.

Count 2: Seditious conspiracy in overt acts; in the calling of seditious socialist meetings and distribution of seditious socialist literature; Participation in the founding of the One Big Union with syndicalist objectives; The prosecution of an illegal strike, to discommode and inconvenience the inhabitants of Winnipeg and the paralyzing of all industries and business in Winnipeg and endangering the lives, health, safety and property of said inhabitants.

Count 3: Seditious conspiracy to carry into effect a seditious intention to endanger human life and to cause serious bodily injury and to expose valuable property to destruction and serious injury. 

Count 4: Seditious conspiracy to organize an unlawful combination or association or associations of workmen and employees to get demands by unlawful general strikes which were intended to be a step in a revolution against the constituted form of government in Canada. 

Count 5: Seditious conspiracy to undermine and destroy confidence in the government, laws and constitution. To persuade workmen to form unlawful associations for the purposes of obtaining control of all industries and of obtaining the property rightfully belonging to other persons.

Count 6: Seditious conspiracy to unlawfully bring about changes in the constitution and to enforce the "Soviet" form of government in Canada through means similar to those used in Russia. 

Count 7: Committing a common nuisance by use of an unlawful general sympathetic strike in which various employees walked out illegally and which endangered the lives, health, safety, property and comfort of the public and obstructed the exercise and enjoyment of rights common to all His Majesty's subjects.

Aug 1, 1919: The Winnipeg Eight at Vaughan Street Jail 

COMMENTARY: In making his charge to the jury the judge makes it clear that he believes in the guilt of the accused. The defense protests the method of choosing a jury and the prosecution attorney confides to a colleague that with any other jury in the country a conviction would be unlikely. Upon reconvening the jury renders its verdict.

JUDGE: I have the jury's verdict before me. [pause] A.A. Heaps. Not guilty on all seven counts.

COMMENTARY: A labor alderman in the City of Winnipeg. Member of the Strike Committee. Upholsterer by trade. Only one of the seven to be acquitted on all seven counts. Defended himself. His address to the jury took all of one day.

JUDGE: Reverend William Ivens. Guilty on all seven counts. Sentence: one year in Manitoba Prison Farm.

COMMENTARY: Had been ousted from the Methodist church for his pacifist views. Subsequently founded a labor church in the Winnipeg Trades and Labor hall. At the time of his arrest was editor of the Western Labor News. Defended himself. His address to the jury took 14 hours. While in prison, elected to the legislature for the Independent Labor Party, where he served 16 years.

JUDGE: R.E. Bray. On six counts of seditious conspiracy, not guilty. On the charge of committing a common nuisance, Guilty. Sentence: six months in the Manitoba Prison Farm.

COMMENTARY: Soldier. Member of the Strike Committee. Representative from the Soldiers Committee. Philosophically a pacifist. Only joined the army to get work. Subsequently becomes an organiser for the newly-founded One Big Union. Spends his reclining years in Vancouver growing gladiolas.

JUDGE: George Armstrong. Guilty on all seven counts. Sentence: one year in the Manitoba Prison Farm.

COMMENTARY: Member of the Strike Committee. Member and one-time organizer of the United Brotherhood of Carpenter and Joiners of America. Prominent lecturer for the Socialist Party of Canada. While in prison elected to the Manitoba Legislature on a reformist ticket. Subsequently returns to write and speak for the Socialist Party in relative obscurity.

JUDGE: John Queen. Guilty on all seven counts. Sentence: one year in Manitoba Prison Farm.

COMMENTARY: A silver-tongued labor orator. Alderman of the city of Winnipeg. Advertising Manager of the Western Labor News. While in prison, elected to the Manitoba Legislature and subsequently reelected the rest of his life. Serves seven terms as the mayor of Winnipeg.

JUDGE: R.F. Johns. Guilty on all seven counts. Sentence: one year in the Manitoba Prison Farm.

COMMENTARY: Railroad machinist. Active member of the Socialist Party of Canada. During entire strike was in Eastern Canada involved in other union activities. His imprisonment results in an undue strain on his wife causing him to drop all Socialist activities. He returns to school to become a machinist teacher and ultimately the Manitoba Director of Technical Education.

JUDGE: William A. Pritchard. Guilty on all seven counts. Sentence: one year in the Manitoba Prison Farm.

COMMENTARY: Vancouver organizer for the longshoremen's union. In Winnipeg on a four-day visit as executive representative of the Vancouver Trades and Labor Council. A prominent speaker for the Socialist Party of Canada. His address to the jury, two days, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. each, becomes a classic in judicial circles. Pressures from his imprisonment have tragic effects upon his family. He is subsequently several times elected the Reeve of Burnaby and is a key factor in the founding of the reformist British Columbia CCF Party. For this latter act some of his fellow socialists never forgave him. In 1979 three years before his death at the age of 93, in his home in Los Angeles he wrote "Had the government carried out its initial move there would not have been any trial. . . Andrews, principal counsel for the crown went one evening to the Penitentiary and announced: By tomorrow you will all be deported to Britain — wives and children to follow. . . . But Armstrong at once called out: Hey, Alfie! What are you going to do with me? Send me to Alaska? He was born in York, Toronto. This put the kibosh on the hurriedly devised scheme."

COMMENTARY: Two others are tried separately.

JUDGE: F. .J. Dixon. For your part in writing and circulating articles in the Western Labor News you are hereby charged with seditious libel.

COMMENTARY: A labor member of the Provincial legislature, undertook the publication of Western Labor News when the others were arrested. Made a stellar performance of conducting his own defence and despite hostile charge from the judge, after 40 hours the jury rendered a verdict of not guilty.

COMMENTARY: R.B. Russell is charged on six counts of seditious conspiracy and one count of common nuisance.

JUDGE: R.B. Russell. Guilty on all seven counts. Sentence: two years in Stoney Mountain Penitentiary.

COMMENTARY: Secretary of Canadian Railroad Machinists. Esteemed to be leader of the strike. Prominent member of the Socialist Party of Canada for which he runs while in prison. He is narrowly defeated by fellow strike supporter, Dixon, on the second count of a preferential ballot. Labor throughout the world demands a pardon for him as far away as Glasgow, Scotland, threaten a general strike if he is not released. He is pardoned. Upon release, he becomes secretary and main organizer for the newly founded One Big Union. It is Russell's expressed intention to fight for workers on the industrial field, while at the same time educate them in socialist ideas for the ultimate abolition of capitalism. For a while the OBU makes an impressive impact upon labor scene; its presence being felt in a wide spectrum, including Nova Scotia miners, textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in New York and San Francisco and amongst western lumber workers. For fifteen years it publishes a weekly journal with union business interspersed with socialist theory. But the writing is on the wall. The OBU has to fight on too many fronts: employers with an understandable mutual antagonism; government; police; and other unions — first there is the international craft unions, then the international industrial unions — and the Communist Party, whose worm-within and Moscow-obedience policy is scorned by the OBU. Ultimately the OBU withers to a mere Winnipeg base. After 43 years, at the founding of the Canadian Labor Congress in 1962 what remained of it is officially disbanded. On Labor Day 1964, four weeks before his death, Bob Russell is officially recognised as the father of labor in Manitoba. A school and a wing of a children's hospital are named after him. [Pause]

In the words of Pritchard at the time ". . . in my own mind I rest assured that the historian of the future will drive the knife of critical research into the very bowels of the bogey that has been conjured forth out of the imagination of certain legal luminaries of this city; and placing everything in its proper position will appreciate at their worth each fact and each factor; and will appreciate at their proper worth all those persons who have become part and parcel of what has been conceded to be the greatest case in the history of Canada."

Theatre Review: Nye (2024)

Theatre Review from the July 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nye  by Tim Price (Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff)

The celebrated Welsh actor, Michael Sheen, takes the lead role in a new play about the celebrated Welsh politician, Aneurin (‘Nye’) Bevan. With a script by Tim Price and under the direction of the National Theatre’s artistic lead Rufus Norris, the scenario has Sheen, dressed in pyjamas and close to death in a hospital bed, going back in memory through the key moments of his life. A series of scenes, sometimes surreal in their framing, show him progress from stammering schoolboy to coal miner, from trade union activist to rebel Labour MP, and finally from the back benches of parliament to government minister overseeing the establishment of the NHS.

The play has already had what can be called ‘rave reviews’. The Times declared that ‘Sheen burns with genuine passion’, the i paper called it ‘a taut and fluid triumph’, and other words used to describe it have been ‘spectacular’ ‘mesmerising’ and ‘unrepeatable’. The full house of around 2,000 at the performance I attended were indeed mesmerised, as was I, by Sheen’s performance and indeed by the performance of the whole cast of actors around him, taking parts such as Bevan’s wife, Jennie Lee, his best and most longstanding friend, Archie Lush, and his bitter political adversary, Winston Churchill. One could not but be powerfully drawn into Bevan’s journey, both mental and political, and in particular into the leading role he played in setting up the ‘welfare state’ immediately following the Second World War as Labour government Minister for Health and Housing. His role in this, and particularly in the NHS, is the play’s main raison d’être, so that even the staunchly conservative Telegraph had only words of praise for Sheen’s performance and went so far as to refer to the production as ‘a valiant and valuable affirmation of the NHS’.

The question of course that a reviewer in the Socialist Standard must ask, even while sharing the widely positive view of the production itself, is to what extent its unmitigated praise of Bevan and his politics is justified. Prior to the formation of the NHS in 1948, workers who could afford it generally contributed to various small insurance policies to provide a form of insurance for medical treatment. But many did not. And this was cumbersome and inefficient, and above all a hindrance to workers’ productivity. It was decided by the wartime coalition government, therefore, in line with the recommendations of the 1942 Beveridge Report, to reorganise the health system under central control. Both main parties, Labour and Tory, committed to such a reform in their 1945 election manifestos, and so when Labour won an overwhelming victory in that election, it fell to that party to put it into operation.

The justification for this and other welfare reforms was summed up in the Beveridge Report:

‘Social insurance and the allied services, as they exist today, are conducted by a complex of disconnected administrative organs, proceeding on different principles, doing invaluable service but at a cost in money and trouble and anomalous treatment of identical problems for which there is no justification.’

In other words, it was going to be more efficient and more cost effective for the services in question to be streamlined and brought directly under state control. So while no one would deny the famous adage of Bevan’s, repeated in the play, that ‘no society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of a lack of means’, it has to be borne in mind that the main rationale of this reform was to make the system of workers selling their energies to an employer for a wage or salary more efficient and not first and foremost to benefit those workers.

The Socialist Party’s frequent characterisation of the NHS as ‘a cheap back-to-work service’ or a ‘way of patching up workers’ may seem a little over-cynical, especially as the nation-wide hospital and free medical advice and treatment system that was set up under the supervision of Bevan as Labour health minister in 1948 was clearly of benefit to workers who no longer had to find the money to pay for medical treatment. But, that said, there can be no doubt that it was not introduced with benevolence in mind. Indeed, such an arrangement was soon mirrored in various other countries whatever the professed ideology of the governments in office there. The fact is that ‘welfare’ reforms were necessary to guard against social breakdown, a situation potentially detrimental to capitalism and its profit-making imperative.

Yet of course, as many reforms, the NHS never worked quite as intended. The ‘free’ health service soon became unpredictably ‘expensive’ and certain charges (eg, for prescriptions) were introduced, and it has rarely not been in a state of crisis. Today’s increasing waiting lists, difficulties in securing GP appointments and overwhelmed emergency units show how the economic forces of capitalism constantly beguile the intentions of well-meaning reformers such as Bevan.

There can be little doubt about Bevan’s sincerity, at least in the early and middle part of his life and career, as focused on in this production. He was a spellbinding orator not afraid to be seen as a rebel and to use the strongest terms possible to state his credo (once famously referring to the Tories as ‘lower than vermin’). But, in the end, his was the idealism of someone who threw his energy into political life under the impression that capitalism could be adjusted to work in the interests of the working class. And what, as a celebration of the man, this play fails to convey is that this impression was a mistaken one and indeed that Bevan himself, in later years, moved from expressions of triumphant idealism towards pragmatic acceptance of capitalist politics and its limitations. It was in a private pay-bed in an NHS hospital in fact that he ended his days, the bed from which we are taken in this play through the key moments of his life. But thoroughly recommended as a spectacle.

Howard Moss

All “Socialists” Now. (1907)

From the February 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the last issue I gave a few examples of the many brands of “Socialism” made up to suit the political complexions of the various class (and no class) organisations whose members are anxious not to be out of touch with the fashion. As indicative of the growth of the fashion, I notice that in addition to Shaw’s “Socialist” plays at the Court Theatre, the Stage Society recently put on that “Socialist” drama, “The Weavers” ; also Nelly Neil, the principal character in the musical comedy of that name, is a “Socialist.” At the Haymarket in the curtain raiser “Her Grace the Reformer” we have another “Socialist” as the leading part. That well-known “Socialist” mummer, Mr. Jas. Welch is shortly to appear in a new role, while a “Socialist” lady sustains the chief feminine interest in “The Bondman,” the author of which is that well-known “Socialist,” Mr. Hall Caine.

o o o

In good truth we are all “Socialists” now and we, who for so many years were as voices crying in the wilderness, ought to be overjoyed to know that we are now “the thing don’t you know.” We have been “taken up.” We bask in the smiles of the queens of “Society” and count the peerage and the stage (which perhaps are not quite the same thing—yet) among our “comrades.” In such circumstances it ill becomes a man to cavil. And yet it seems somewhat incumbent upon me to suggest that there is some little possibility of the undiscriminative failing to locate the wood for the obscuring trees. There are so many “Socialists” to contend with that the wayfaring man is in imminent danger of missing the Socialism he is searching for.

o o o

And probably that is one at least of the ideas lying behind some of this seeming enthusiasm for the “Socialist” cult. With so many brands of “Socialism” on the market and so many “Socialist” connoisseurs of those brands, it is no easy matter for the common workman to distinguish between the true and the false. The effect upon his mind must be of a confusion worse confounded. And it becomes an increasingly difficult thing to keep the class line clearly defined while there is, apparently, so much sympathy for working-class ideals existing among the representatives of the class whose interests (according to the exponents of the class struggle) are in such diametrical opposition to the interests of the workers.

o o o

There may easily, therefore, be more in this matter than meets the eye. Undoubtedly it is a concern for one’s own material interests that lies at the root of all our actions, however unconscious we may be of it. And with the pressure of economic conditions ever tending to impel the working class toward action in their own protection, it becomes obvious to the capitalist class that the workers, upon whose labour they maintain their useless and luxurious lives, must soon awaken to the real causes of poverty. With this awakening must surely come the downfall of capitalism. Wherefore—the dust of a simulated sympathy is stirred into a cloud in the hope that the attention of the workers may be diverted from the real issue.

o o o

The more reason for us to renew our efforts to combat the work and influence of the agents of capitalism in whatever guise they come. The more reason for us to shout our message from the house-tops; to persistently give emphatic voice to our warnings ; to stand always pointing the way along which our class must march to their emancipation. Of one thing we are certain : economic development cannot be retarded. And because that is so the confusing work of the representatives of capitalism, however successful it may be to-day, cannot endure. Sooner or later capitalism must definitely and irrevocably take its stand in naked antagonism to the workers. It is our business to do that which other organisations professing Socialism have not done, viz., to insist upon Socialism as the only hope of our class ; to show in what Socialism essentially consists ; to make clear and keep clear the class division; to demonstrate the real meaning of most of the sympathetic protestations of what are actually anti-working class bodies; in fine, to make of our education work an insistence upon essentials and the clearance of non-essentials to the end that the time may be hastened when capitalism shall shed its pretences and stand out for what it is. It will do that when it finds itself without the power to hoodwink or cajole, when its Carnegies and Burnses can no longer be relied upon to deceive or delude—when, that is, the working class have understood their position and their power. And just as surely as capitalism finds itself in that condition and is obliged to decide that the time has come when it must organise its forces openly and avowedly against the army of the workers, will the workers be on the eve of their emancipation. There is no doubt of the issue of the contest.. Nothing can prevent the defeat and extermination of capitalism; nothing can prevent the victory and development of Labour. We may hasten or retard the day of final struggle but we cannot affect the result, just as we cannot prevent the ultimate dawn of the day itself. But because we can hasten it by marching straight and speaking true and calling things by their right names we have come together to do it. Wherefore The Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Alegra.

Next month's Theatre Review (1996)

Notice from the October 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

In next month’s Socialist Standard Michael Gill will review the play Wallpaper which will be running from the 8th October to the 2nd November (except Mondays) at the Bridewell Theatre., Bride Lane, London EC4 (0171 936 3456). The play is described as ‘A Shavian melodrama portraying the adventures of Mr William Morris, Miss Eleanor Marx and Miss Eliza Doolittle’ and an intriguing cast has Freddie Demuth (Karl Marx’s son by Helene Demuth) down as an "East End Tough’.

We are giving notice of the coming review of this play as we have been notified by the Theatre that those bringing along a copy of this issue of the Socialist Standard will gain a concession on the admission price.

Blogger's Note:

Wallpaper by Sophia Kingshill was reviewed in the November 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Theatre Review: Sand and Glass by Derek Martin (2002)

Theatre Review from the August 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sand and Glass by Derek Martin (Yale College, Wrexham)

There can’t be too many occasions these days when socialist ideas are brought to an unsuspecting public by performance arts students in a College of Further Education. In fact there are not too many occasions when socialist ideas are directly introduced to theatre audiences anywhere, by anybody at present. So for this reason alone, Sand and Glass – a new play by Derek Martin – stood out like a beacon.

As the programme notes make clear, the inspiration for this play was the attempt to establish a moneyless, co-operative community by the Diggers in 17th century England. The plot revolves around an attempt by a contemporary media company (fast disappearing up its own backside in the hunt for something original amongst the postmodernist slurry) to film a Digger-like community living on a desert island. To complicate matters this community (known as ‘The Commune’) is being invaded by imperialistic Taliban-like forces (the “Taheri”) intent on appropriating the land and turning Commune members into something akin to feudal serfs.

The Commune members speak a version of English shorn of its possessive and individualistic language, not even having a word for “I”. Their names reflect their roles in the Commune – Mend is the doctor, Relay the journalist, Digger a land worker, Stanza a poet. With the men imprisoned by the Taheri all the Commune members on show are women.

One of the most fascinating scenes is when Tell (naturally enough, the teacher) initiates a discussion amongst Commune members to explore why the sneering members of the media company filming them have no conception of a how co-operative society could work without private property and exchange. When this leads to an explanation of how people in ‘Western Globeland’ are only allowed access to something provided they have something else to give in exchange for it – and of how they are hunted by “detectors” and kept in small rooms on their own should they transgress this rule—the other Commune members are incredulous. In the Commune, barter, money and crime are alien concepts. Work is undertaken when necessary and goods and services are freely accessed whenever needed.

As the play develops, matters take a vicious turn. Assaulted by the Taheri and manipulated by the visiting journalists, the Commune are eventually forced into a defence of their entire social organisation, both intellectually and physically, leading to a moving series of scenes as the play reaches its climax.

The performance is a powerful one throughout and the play ends with a memorable call to the audience by the female Commune members to rise up against private property and its dehumanising forces as “cynicism is a sin . . . and we have a world to win!”.

It is apparently hoped by the playwright that other theatre groups and venues will be interested in performing or hosting the play in coming months. Though there is always the usual caveat to be mentioned with depictions of somewhat primitive, pre-capitalist societies such as this (with inevitable, unfavourable comparisons of at least some of their features with the modern industrial age) this is most certainly a play that deserves a wider audience. Indeed, for its depiction of the corrosive elements of contemporary capitalism and its call to a better, co-operative future we can only say the wider the audience, the better.

Dave Perrin

Shakespeare and Elizabethan society (1964)

From the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

In this article it is aimed to outline briefly Elizabethan Society and its effect on the work of Shakespeare. It is necessary to look into the social background in order to see how conditions gave rise to new ideas of society and how they were reflected by Shakespeare.

The feudal system was in a dying state towards the end of the 16th century. The first upheaval and the greatest was due to the change in the methods of production. The most important development was in the growth of the wool industry with its expanding export markets. This led to the enclosure system —the forcible seizure of the lands from the peasants by the rich landlords. Here we had the development of early capitalist industry, and the exploitation of the former peasants.

The feudal system was crumbling and power began to move from the feudal aristocrat to the new landed bourgeoisie.

Now for the political aspects of the time which followed from the change in economic conditions. The intensive reorganisation of sections of the landed nobility and their unification with the bourgeoisie (the new merchant class) which in its early period (almost to the end of the 16th century), brought about the desire for an absolute monarch to. combat rebellious feudal lords.

The victory of the House of York in the Wars of the Roses, brought Edward IV (1461-1483) to the throne. He was the friend of the merchants and during his reign the mercantile system and absolutism in the political arena first made their appearance. Edward IV ruled almost without Parliament. Absolutism reached its climax during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Everybody was affected by the revolutionary changes in the social conditions.

Shakespeare (born 1564, died 1616) was a champion of the new forces. He recognised the barriers of the old feudal order and was in favour of absolutism to crush feudal rebellion. The history plays show this very clearly. The essential theme is the affirmation of absolute power. His fore-runner, Marlowe (1564-1593), likewise reflected in his work the aspirations of the bourgeoisie.

His plays expressed all the passion of an exultant class, eager to rush into the fray for the conquest of the world. Marlowe develops the heroic tragedy. “To know everything” is the motto of Marlowe's heroes. Shakespeare has his roots in Marlowe, but picked up the pen of Marlowe and developed his style considerably.

Above all Shakespeare recognized the necessity of a strong central power, to put down rebellion. The English bourgeoisie favoured not only monarchism, but even absolutism for a time, which still served their ends. This is a problem that occupied Shakespeare.

This also explains the peculiar omissions in his works. In “King John”, for instance, there is no mention of the Magna Carta, one of the most important events of that epoch; this would have lowered the stature of the ruler, and defeated Shakespeare’s purpose.

The bourgeoisie, the squirearchy and the absolutists were united in their common struggle against the feudal nobles who stood for the old order. The history plays leave little doubt as to where Shakespeare’s sympathies lay. The powerful feudal nobles depicted by him—the Percies, Glendowers, Mortimers—are arrogant and refractory. To him they were the scourge of the land. He saw Henry IV’s reign as an uninterrupted series of tragic events due to the feudal uprisings which resulted from the King's usurpation.

A strong King, according to Shakespeare, is the greatest political blessing a nation can enjoy. Title alone does not make a King—he must justify his rank. Henry VI and Richard II perish because they are not such Kings. In the play Henry V we have the only sovereign who has completely crushed feudalism. He embodies all Shakespeare’s hopes which were to be realised by absolutism. In Richard III the King represents a strong ruler who firmly holds the reins of power and puts an end to the intrigues and quarrels of the Court cliques.

The history plays are permeated with the idea of the inevitability of the historical process: “evil inevitability”, Richard II calls it. There are many references to the “times” and the “spirit of the times”.

The Earl of Westmoreland (Henry IV, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 1) replies to the accusation of the rebellious feudal nobles with:

O, my good Lord Mowbray,

Construe the times to their necessities,

And you shall say indeed, it is the time 

And not the King, that doth you injuries.

Then we have the speech by Warwick (Henry IV, Part 2, Act III, Scene I)—

There is a history in all men’s lives,

Figuring the nature of the times deceased;

The which observed, a man may prophesy,

With a near aim, of the main chance of things 

As yet not come to life.

Shakespeare not only states the casual conditioning of events but demonstrates it through all the means at his command. One of the chief means is to relate events to the social background. In Henry IV, the scenes in which Falstaff appears; in Henry V, the scenes in the camp; and in Richard III, the scenes of proclamation depict the life which is the foundation from which spring the major political events.

Shakespeare was a powerful poetical dramatist opposed to the feudal system and in the history plays he used the history of the previous times to help further the object of crushing feudalism. It was a tradition in those days, handed down from medieval times, that drama was to entertain and to teach.

During the first period of Shakespeare’s work until around 1601, there occurred the coalescence of all the foremost forces of the country: upper middle-class, the monarchy, the gentry, and even part of the old landed nobility. This process is reflected by the joyous optimism of Shakespeare’s early work which was filled with a bold and happy affirmation of life, with obviously aristocratic elements. He has two main themes:

1. The assertion of the absolutist national state; and 
2. The joy of living now available to society, at last emancipated from feudal bondage.

To the first theme he dedicated the history plays: to the second the series of enchanting, gay comedies like “Two Gentlemen of Verona”, “Love’s Labour’s Lost”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and “The Taming of the Shrew”. But the effects of the disintegration of the class alignment are already apparent in the plays written towards the end of the 16th century, plays like “Much Ado About Nothing” (1598) and ‘Twelfth Night” (1599) with their bitter sweet atmosphere which is never very far from tragedy. The decomposition of the Court had set in, the Puritans were becoming more and more aggressive, the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the nobility had already begun. Hence the tragic treatment of power in “Julius Caesar” (1599) with its confused conclusions and its pessimism.

Shakespeare lived in the period which saw the rise of the bourgeoisie, later to become the capitalist class. Here is an extract from the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels which sums up the situation:—

“The bourgeoisie . . . has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his ‘natural superiors' and has left no other bond between man and man than naked self-interest and callous ‘cash payment'. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. . . . The bourgeoisie has stripped off its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. . . . The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil and has reduced the family relation to a money relation.”

During the second period to 1609—years which marked the decline of Elizabeth's reign and the advent, under James I, of feudal reaction—the process of disintegration was completed. Corruption was rife and the nobility, with the support of the monarchy, was preparing to defend its position against the bourgeoisie and the gentry. The literature of the time was teeming with pessimism.

These events, plus the execution of the Earl of Essex and the Earl of Southampton, who was a friend of Shakespeare, had a profound influence on the poet. He did not write any more gay comedies but created the powerful tragedies “Hamlet” and “Troilus and Cressida”. In both these plays Shakespeare gives us a picture of the social background as being ripe unto rottenness.

In “Measure for Measure” (1604) there can be seen the internal problems of absolute monarchy. The characters comment on the ruler and on current political events. We have portrayed the dregs of humanity; young profligates of the Court; procurers; corrupt constables and swindlers.

Then came the later tragedies like “Macbeth” and “King Lear", again dealing with the question of Kingship and the troubles of society. “Macbeth” may be seen to be another “Richard III”, but the play is much more profound. It is the portrayal of the mental troubles of Macbeth after he has usurped the throne. “King Lear” can be seen as a powerful representation of Shakespeare's familiar theme showing spurious feudal ideas as opposed to ideas of genuine powerful love. The play also contains doubts about the money grabbing bourgeoisie. Edmund is like the bourgeoisie, a ruthless machiavellian, crafty and ambitious for personal gain.

In “Coriolanus" (1607) we have one of the gloomiest tragedies. It reflects disillusionment in the rulers. There can be seen a criticism and condemnation of the feudal aristocrat trying to rule under the new conditions but wishing to retain his feudal privileges. An interesting feature, also in this play, is the language of the lowly plebians. There is no indication of hypocrisy, greed or baseness and they are presented in a sympathetic manner.

Shakespeare was a powerful poetical dramatist and the language and dramatic intensity of the plays develops beautifully. In the early plays blank verse intrudes on the drama, but later he developed his art and reached a fusion in the heights of poetic drama. His achievement, however, is not only in the form of poetry and drama, but also in his presentation of the social background, and it is only by recognising this that we can fully appreciate his work.

In “A Companion to Shakespearian Studies", G. B. Harrison makes the following remarks:—

A serious student of Shakespeare's plays cannot neglect the national background, for in an age that was in many ways cribbed and confined, the problems of the individual were inseparable from the problems of the state. The picture of a Shakespeare magnificently aloof from life may be pleasing to romantic critics, but it does not square either with the facts, or with Shakespeare’s own comment upon his art. “Players”, said Hamlet to Polonius, “are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time”. Besides the purpose and end of playing “both at the first and now, was and is to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature”; “to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure”.

Shakespeare was at first a supporter of the bourgeoisie, the exponent of the program advanced by them when, in the name of humanity, they first challenged the feudal order, but which later they disavowed.

Towards the end of Shakespeare's life the bourgeoisie were already strong enough to throw off their cloak of being in the interests of humanity, to reveal their money grabbing and narrow-minded puritanism. Then he subjected the bourgeoisie to a keen and profound criticism. The rapacity, greed, cruelty, egoism and philistinism so typical of the growing bourgeoisie are scathingly portrayed and attacked. He placed on stage the social types of his day and through them reflected more clearly and profoundly than anyone else, the predominant social ideas of the times.

W. Waters

[Reprinted from the Socialist Standard, June 1951.]

Bulgakov's 'Flight' (1998)

Theatre Review from the July 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Flight, National Theatre, Olivier.

Flight, by Mikhail Bulgakov, is a knockout. For sheer exuberant theatricality, high octane ensemble playing, and dramatic frisson, I have seen nothing like it for years. And the text is so dense and rewarding that a second visit revealed much that in the excitement of the first occasion we had missed. Rarely does a play provide such a whirligig of different emotions which sit so comfortably together. Through the evening the audience is presented with moments of terror, hope, apprehension, side-splitting humour, poignancy and despair, through all of which shines an indomitable will to survive.

The play, which is set in Russia, Turkey and France in the years immediately following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, is a biting commentary on the tragedy and absurdity of civil war. It follows the chaotic journey of two refugees caught in the war between the White Russian Army of the Ukraine and the advancing Red Army, whose fates become enmeshed with the Ukrainians. Called a play in dreams the first act dramatises the bitterness of losing; the second act describes what Lesley Milne calls, “the wish-fulfilment dream of winning”. The style is reminiscent of Bertolt Brecht. Just when you think you have grasped the narrative—the essentials of the plot—Bulgakov throws sand in your eyes. Given the world in which we live, he seems to be saying life is unpredictable.

And Bulgakov, who was born in Kiev in 1891, seems to have enjoyed (or, perhaps more properly, endured) the kind of chaotic existence so typical of many of the characters in Flight. In 1919 he qualified as a doctor and was forcibly recruited into the Ukrainian Republican Arms. He escaped, returned to Kiev and was immediately mobilised by the White Army and sent to the Caucasus. Discharged the next year he began a career in literature, writing a string of novels and plays, many of which were banned or censored.

Small wonder then that Flight, written between 1926 and 1928, was not performed in his lifetime. It is a damning critique of Soviet revolutionary politics; a heart-rending account of the way in which most of the Russian population were little more than pawns in a cruel struggle for power between the emerging Soviet state and the residual White Russian Army. And to think that as recently as the last decade there were so-called communists living in Britain who thought that what happened in Russia in 1917 and the following 70-odd years, had something to do with the triumph of socialism.

As a socialist I loved the final moments. In the last dream one of the White Russians, having won a fortune in a French gambling salon, invests it all on a horse. Standing centre-stage, arms outstretched, Charnota's words end the play. "Put everything on Shooting Star to win!" Occasionally, like Charnota, we need to dream if we are to fight the good fight.

Michael Gill

The Whole Loaf (1978)

From the December 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

“It's no good dealing with the symptoms. It's the whole system that’s got to be torn up by the roots.”
"Band together to take it back from them. Let’s band together not to bargain but to own."
“We’re not fighting for the crumbs between ourselves. You've got to go for the whole loaf.”
If we enter their House of Parliament on the backs of the Unions, they’ll just buy us off. We’ve got to hold out for the works — not the crumbs. Even if we force capitalism to eliminate poverty completely, the cancer will still be in the air. We’ve got to tear it out by the roots and build a new world.”
There are still erudite professors lecturing in colleges to-day who don't understand now in 1978. what Tressell the housepainter saw so clearly in 1911.

From “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” by Steve Lowe, after the book by Robert Tressell, produced recently by the Joint Stock Theatre Group at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith.

Merciless capitalist class (1996)

Edward Bond

Theatre Review from the December 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the Company of Men by Edward Bond 
The Pit Theatre
, Barbican.

The playwright Edward Bond has a formidable reputation as a critic of capitalism. But is it a deserved reputation?

In his latest play In the Company of Men he re-visits some familiar territory. He is concerned to document the merciless competitiveness which is at the heart of big business; to examine the way in which the search for economic power, with its seemingly inevitable deviousness and deception, bullying and lying, spills over into the rest of life and corrupts human relationships; and to catalogue the connections between competitiveness, power, bullying and physical violence.

Adopted son, Leonard, tries to displace his bullying father as the head of an arms manufacturing company. He is aided and abetted in his endeavours by the company secretary, only to discover that he has put himself in the thrall of a rival entrepreneur, Hammond, who is in cahoots with the devious company secretary. What should Leonard do? Hand over the controlling interest in his father's business, or kill his bullying father before Hammond can gain advantage?

Bond is very good when characterising the inanity, the madness and the malevolence which lie at the heart of corporate capitalism, and the hypocrisies which its apologists mouth in its, and their, defence. Hammond is intent on amalgamations which will allow him to sell not butter or guns to the nations of the world, but rather both butter and guns. He says he trusts no none "not even myself'. And Leonard's father rejects the charge that he is ambitious, claiming only to be "a leader wanting to serve".

In the Company of Men is a wordy, verbose play. On its first night it ran for nearly four hours, but when I saw the production some days later it had been trimmed to a mere three-and-a-half hours. Probably Bond shouldn't have directed the play himself. A more objective director would, even now, likely demand more cuts. The play's dense language is often compelling but occasionally it gets in the way of meaning and impact; no matter that it is delivered with conviction and gusto by a talented cast.

A friend remarked as we came out of the theatre that "somewhere in all that there is a play waiting to get out." I know what he meant, but l don't think it’s just a matter of deletions. revisions and amendments. Bond's insights may have been compelling but, to my ears, they were incomplete. Certainly capitalists behave like monsters but Bond never asks why. Is it a matter of choice or does entrepreneurial activity attract those who, for whatever reasons, are inclined to be thrustful, competitive and merciless? Or is it, as the socialist would claim, principally that the mechanics of capitalism demand ruthless, merciless competition because that’s the way the system works?

Bond’s account of the mordant, merciless world of corporate capitalism is powerful and revealing, and it certainly makes for an enjoyable evening. But finally it is an unsatisfactory account, because it is incomplete. Bond describes the behaviour of those caught up in capitalist enterprises very well, but he doesn't help us to understand why his characters behave in the way that they do. And descriptions of the world are not enough. If we want to change things we must engage in more analytical activity. We need to know not only "how" the economic system works and the way it brutalises its combatants, but also "why" it works in the way that it does. In the Company of Men doesn’t really consider such matters.

Michael Gill

‘Antigone’ by Sophocles at the National Theatre (2012)

Theatre Review from the September 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Greek tragedy Antigone by Sophocles was recently staged at the National Theatre in London, starring Christopher Eccleston as Creon and Jodie Whitaker as Antigone, the character Hegel described as “the heavenly Antigone, the most magnificent figure”. This production opens with a tableaux modelled on the photograph of President Obama and aides watching the live video feed of the killing of Bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.

Antigone, the woman of personal courage confronting state oppression has been a source of inspiration for dramatists. For Brecht she was the symbol of popular resistance to the horrors of Nazism. For ‘The Living Theatre’ founder, Judith Malina, Antigone “speaks with an ancient voice that is present wherever there is a willingness to speak against conventional strictures and punitive laws and to invoke the boundless human potential”.

Athenian audiences in the Hellenic Enlightenment would have adopted a more nuanced approach to Antigone, one that was based on the society they were living in.  Marx and Engels identified Ancient Greece as a society based on slavery, where agriculture was still developing, the ‘polis‘ (city state) and private property had appeared, and a ruling class was based on land and slave ownership.

In 5th century BC Athens, a form of ‘democracy’ had developed with a franchise that extended only to male citizens (with no say for slaves and other non-citizens). Athens was run by Boards of Jurors (who were salaried, chosen by lottery, and subject to scrutiny and de-selection), and the Council of 500 (chosen by lottery and examination with restricted tenure). Neither were organs of representative government. The source of direct democracy was in the People’s Assembly where any citizen could vote and speak. The Assembly met 40 days a year, had a quorum of 6,000 and drafted all major legislation.

Antigone, as an individual set against the tyranny of the state in the person of Creon, was appreciated by Athenian audiences because only 70 years before there had been authoritarianism. The play’s major themes can be seen as divine/natural law against man-made/state law or private/family life versus public life/citizenship.

JH Bradley in Hegel’s Theory of Tragedy saw the dialectical conflicts in the ethical views represented by Antigone and Creon.  Hegel in Phenomenology of Spirit sees sibling fidelity and the sister-brother relationship (“mutually self-affirming free individualities”) as the strongest possible relationship for a woman within circumscribed family life. In Athens women did not have the vote; they were legally dependent on men, and in the case of Antigone her male guardian is also Creon. Athenian audiences would appreciate the depth of her rebellion not only against the state but also against a man. Hegel identified gender politics, and that patriarchy creates “an enemy within its own gates”. Hegel adores Antigone and believes her to be nobler than Creon.

Sophocles does not have the gods save Antigone, and in Tiresias’s prophecy there is no praise for Antigone. Creon loses his wife, and his ward Antigone, but it is the loss of his son that is the patriarchal tragedy.  For Sophocles and Athenian audiences it is the hubris of Creon which causes this tragedy.

Steve Clayton

Che and Violence (2012)

Theatre Review from the October 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dirty Market are a theatre collective based in South-east London who have adopted bricolage techniques for their productions, and their most recent Be Good Revolutionaries took place at the Oval House Theatre in Kennington, London. The sources for Be Good Revolutionaries are the last letter of Che Guevara to his children, Crime on Goat Island by Ugo Betti, and  Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children.

Be Good Revolutionaries is set in the claustrophobic world of a jungle hideaway in Latin America in 1967 where a rebel leader's wife Anna (a formidable performance by Juliet Prague), and her two daughters and one son live. Into this world comes a stranger who appears to know the long-lost leader. The stranger is a ‘Martin Guerre’ character who intrudes like in the Betti novel, but his presence is disastrous like in a Roman Polanski film.

Be Good Revolutionaries is reminiscent of Brecht’s Mother Courage where the devastating effects of war are portrayed, and Brecht points out the utter blindness and futility of those hoping to profit by it. Dirty Market have adopted Brechtian techniques for this production, demonstrating the ‘estrangement’ effect by using singing and music to interrupt or comment on the action. This is memorably performed by musician-singer Rebecca Thorn.

The production is noteworthy for the design by Susan Sowerby of the Mexican ‘los dias de los muertos’ artwork, ‘ofrenda’ shrines, skeletons and ‘calavera catrinas’ which give the performance the necessary ‘latin’ American ambience. This is augmented by the choreographed movements of the children, a soundtrack of flutes, Rebecca Thorn’s accordion, gunfire and helicopter rotors which bring to mind Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and Christopher Bruce’s modern ballet Ghost Dances which featured the Chilean folk of Inti Illimani. Be Good Revolutionaries is evocative of the music of songs like the Cuban ‘Guantanamera’ and Victor Jara’s Chilean anthem ‘Venceremos’.

Che Guevara’s last letter to his children contained fatherly advice in the shape of “Grow up into good revolutionaries”, “Remember that it is the Revolution which is important” and a reminder that he was “a man who acted as he thought best and who has been absolutely faithful to his convictions”. Since the 1960’s, the famous Che image has been thoroughly ‘marketed’ and exploited by western capitalism. Che was captured and executed in 1967 in Bolivia where he was attempting to export the Cuban revolution, and conduct a Maoist “protracted peoples war”. This play includes the line “People have to die for change” and a glorification of “revolution”. Such romanticising of violent insurrection, and armed struggle is fundamental to Trotskyists and Leninists but all minority violent revolutions devour their own children.

Although Cuba is very popular with the Left, it is a one-party state, there are political prisoners, no freedom of the press,  no right to strike, price controls, goods rationing, a constitution based on the USSR,  a planned economy in the USSR ‘state capitalist’ mode, and essentially there  is ‘commodity nature of production’, and therefore is not a socialist society.

Steve Clayton