I’m Not Running is the
title of David Hare’s new play as well as the first message delivered in the
opening scene where a PR man announces to the press that Pauline Gibson has no
intention of being a candidate.
David Hare, the doyen of British political
playwrights, weaves the personal lives of Pauline, a surgeon, and her one-time
lover, lawyer Jack Gould, around the issue of the closure of a small hospital
and the leadership of England’s Labour Party. A bit of sex, soaring political
ambitions and a basketful of social issues are brought together to provide some
good theatre
Siân Brooke and Alex Hassell in I’m Not Running.
Photo: Mark Douet
The lives of the two protagonists
are examined from 1996 to today in non-chronological order. Pauline (Si
Brooke) and
Jack (Alex Hassell) come from different ends of the social spectrum. He is the
son of a brilliant star of the Labour Party, privileged, intelligent,
self-assured, raised with all the befits of wealth and very ambitious.
She is the child of a poor,
dysfunctional and violent family but is intelligent and ambitious, and becomes
a surgeon. The event that catapults Pauline into public view is her opposition to
the planned closure of a small hospital. Jack who is a member of parliament is
in favour and in fact he has had a hand in setting the government policy to
close small hospitals and replace them with large health centres that are more
efficient.
Pauline takes on the fight to
save the hospital and in effect the National Health Service and is supremely
successful. As a result, she is elected to parliament as an independent.
The sexual tryst that Jack and
Pauline had while students is put on the back burner so to speak, but the stove
is not entirely turned off. Hare brings in issues of national health, equality
of the sexes, the problems immigrants face and politics in general.
Meredith Ikeji (Amanda Okafor),
the child of black immigrants who has graduated from Oxford University has
faced discrimination. Nerena (Brigid Zengeni) is a black surgeon who cares for
patients but is politically inept. Pauline’s mother Blaise (Liza Sadovy) is an
abused wife and an alcoholic dying of cancer.
Joshua McGuire and Siân Brooke. Photo: Mark Douet
Joshua McGuire as Sandy Mynott,
Pauline’s PR man, is a highly sympathetic character doing the impossible job of
speaking for an ambitious politician.
Everything leads to the climactic
fight for the leadership of the Labour Party. Jack, a cookie-cutter candidate,
has all the attributes to make him a sure winner. He knows the party from the
inside, he has a perfect wife and an impeccable record if you ignore a couple
of indiscretions.
Pauline was elected as a
one-issue candidate, she is an independent MP and not even a member of the
Party. How can she compete with Jack?
Jack and Pauline are very much
alike despite surface differences and as such I did not find them fully
developed characters. The other characters were not given enough scope apart
from Sandy.
Director Neil Armfield and
designer Ralph Myers use an empty stage for the press scenes and a room on the
revolving stage for the interior scenes. There is generous use of projections
where we see the main characters on large screens befitting their ambitions, I
suppose.
I am not sure if more intimate
knowledge of British politics, especially the state of the Labour Party may
have added more depth to my appreciation of the play.
In any event, the final
confrontation between Pauline and Jack is, of course, over principles, personalities
and the fate of the Labour Party and the country.
The last words of the play will
take you back to the opening scene and the title of the play.
_________
I’m Not Running
by David Hare continues on the Lyttleton stage of the National Theatre, South Bank, London, England. http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/
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