James Karas
It is March 2016 and we are in an apartment in Kabul where five
terrorists are planning to assassinate a high ranking official. They are bearded,
turbaned and dark-skinned, and although they have some difference of opinion
they are dedicated to killing a member of the ruling class because they love
justice and want to return their country to the people.
They belong to an Organization and espouse its doctrines and obey its rules.
One of them is the accepted leader and they are getting ready to toss a bomb at
the official’s car. The bomb thrower is prepared to die in the act but he would
prefer to survive the attack and be caught. That way he will die twice for the
justice that he so ardently seeks: once when he is caught and once when he is
executed.
Raquel
Duffy & Gregory Prest. Photo: Cylla von Tiedemann
All of them do what they do because they love the people, they hate
oppression and they are convinced they are the harbingers of justice. There is
no evidence that the target of their assassination has done anything unjust or
oppressive – he simply belongs to the ruling class and that is enough to
justify his killing.
It is unlikely we would know that much about these terrorists but if we learned
what they did and their objectives, we may have no difficulty is describing
their act as fundamentally evil. We would consider them members of ISIS and our
immediate reaction would be to consider them murderers.
Now change the date to 1905 and set the scene in Moscow where five revolutionaries
are plotting the assassination of a Grand Duke. That is where Albert Camus set
his 1949 play The Just and my reaction to the terrorists was quite
ambivalent.
Director Frank Cox-O’Connell (and Camus) gives us a sympathetic but not
one-sided view of these people who are dedicated to fighting for justice but
also have characteristics of fanaticism and the pursuit of martyrdom without
much logical or strategic thinking.
Yanek (played passionately by Gregory Prest) is a poet who believes in
justice and is ready to die for it. When he is about to toss the bomb to kill
the Duke, he stops upon seeing two children in the carriage. Killing the Duke
is one thing; murdering children is quite another.
Stepan (played like a true party apparatchik by Brendan Wall) has spent
time in jail and has been tortured. He has become a killer and is prepared to
obliterate anyone who stands in the way of the revolution. He is fighting for
the people.
Boris (Diego Matamoros) is the leader of the group and he is reasonably
sympathetic. Peter Fernandez plays the young Voinon who finds out he lacks the
killer instinct despite his devotion to the revolution. Raquel Duffy turns in a
superb performance as the bomb maker of the group. She shares everyone’s
passion for justice but she has not lost her humanity at all.
The plot succeeds but the killer is caught. The lesson that Camus gives
us is that counterterrorism breeds more terrorism. These assassins become more
fanatical and less human when their mates are caught, tortured or executed.
Their dedication to justice remains intact, at least in their minds, but their
dedication to murder almost anyone who seems to belong to the other side is
just as intense.
The production is done in the small Michael Young Theatre turned into a
theatre-in-the round with the stage in the centre. The set by Designer Ken
MacKenzie is Spartan but effective. The jail scene with the chains and the lighting
(by MacKenzie) and is excellent.
It would be difficult to imagine a more timely play and the production
is provocative and an extremely worthwhile trip to the theatre.
__________
The
Just by Albert Camus translated by Bobby Theodore opened on
March 10 and will play until March 26, 2016 at the Young Centre for the
Performing Arts, 55 Tank House Lane,
Toronto, Ontario. www.soulpepper.ca
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