Great 'STUFF HAPPENS' in American Debut at Taper

While the Broadway world was honoring its best of the year on Sunday evening at the Tony Awards, Los Angeles Theatre was celebrating its own greatness in theatre with the American Premiere of David Hare's Stuff Happens at the Mark Taper Forum.

 As Hare's author's note clearly states, "Stuff Happens is a history play, which happens to center on very recent history." The 'history' of which he speaks, is the sequence of events that led ultimately to the invasion of Iraq by US and coalition forces in March of 2003. Hare further notes that, "The events within have been authenticated from multiple sources both private and public. What happened happened. Nothing in the narrative is knowingly untrue. Scenes of direct address quote people verbatim. When the doors close on the world's leaders, then I have used my imagination. This is surely a play, not a documentary…"

  Which is precisely what makes this all too real drama so gripping on stage. While it is a play, the fact that it is loaded with so many facts and direct quotations creates a kind of "reality theatre". Some may see this as cause to deride the play for blurring the lines between fact and literary license, but one could also argue that it is commenting on the theatrical nature of the events that led up to the war in the first place. The UK and US administration, not to mention the French, the UN and Iraq, were all, in essence, putting on their own theatrical presentation of events for the world to see and interpret. So it's only fitting that Hare should combine all the facts, figures, personalities and politics into an evening of electrically-charged theatre, much as he did with his mesmerizing, seminal trilogy on British institutions, Racing Demon, Murmuring Judges and The Absence of War.

 Stuff Happens – the title coming infamously from Rumsfeld when asked why there was looting occurring in the middle of Baghdad while the US occupied the city - is part theatre of the absurd, part cautionary tale, and part Shakespearean tragedy, and sometimes all three at the same time. In the opening of the piece, as the audience was introduced to the bevy of characters, some – like Condoleeza Rice and Dick Cheney – were greeted with laughter, hissing and jeers. It unfortunately started the evening off as if it were preaching to the converted, a kind of "The Daily Show – Live on Stage!" if you will, but over the course of two acts in three hours, Hare effectively blends facts with dramatic license to bring you right into the inner sanctum of the world's most powerful governments. By weaving together the private conversations of politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats and ordinary citizens, Stuff Happens provides a greater context of understanding to recent historical events by juxtaposing the many personalities and points of view, and the political repercussions to every action and reaction.

 What makes this play truly tragic, and so important in the grand scheme of things is that it forces us to confront the actions of our elected leaders in a time when the 24-hour news cycle seems concerned only with what's news (and I use that term very lightly) now, rendering all other news that is, say, 12 hours old, as irrelevant, regardless of its importance. How quickly we have forgotten that the war was launched with the rationale that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Even when no such weapons were found, and after numerous commissions, studies and experts have stated just that, we neglect to go back and hold our leaders accountable for misrepresenting the facts. It's old news, so why bother. We're already onto something new – like Michael Jackson, Deep Throat and the "Runaway Bride." As if to underscore this point, as I write this, MSNBC is ticking away the seconds, minutes and hours with a 'Jackson Jury Deliberation' time clock in the lower right corner of the screen! The pop-culture obsessed world in which we live, coupled with a MTV derived short attention span population, has allowed our leaders to get away with incredible feats of lies, misjudgments and miscalculations, all of which have dire consequences to our nation and the world.

 But Hare is not completely one-sided in his assessment of the Iraq War. While it would be easy for each character to become a kind of Saturday Night Live caricature of themselves, Hare very carefully humanizes these characters in a way the public would never be privy too. Regardless of your political views, to witness Tony Blair's obvious anguish, Colin Powell's deep loyalty to partners he has made promises to, and Condoleeza Rice leading Bush's war cabinet in the hymn "Amazing Grace," is quite powerful, not to mention incredibly moving. He has adeptly inserted the voices of ordinary citizens throughout the evening, through characters he calls "Viewpoints," which bring some balance to the events of the evening and allows the audience to hear from the people who's lives are ultimately affected by the words and actions of the powerbrokers on stage. One man speaks of how the toppling of the Hussein regime brought freedom to tens of millions of people who had not experienced freedom for 25 years. "How can you argue against that," he asks, stressing that if the same thing was happening in a European country, there would be no question, nor debate, as to what to do. Most powerful, however, is the final viewpoint, at the very end of the play, from an Iraqi man who blames the Iraqi people for their own fate saying, "A country's leader is it own fault." Truer words could not have been spoken, regardless of whether your leader is a dictator or an elected official. 

 Gordon Davidson, directing his last production as head of the CTG, does so with immense skill, keeping the action moving, and ratcheting up the tension word-by-word. Kudos, also, to Amy Lieberman for casting such an incredible group of actors, including Keith Carradine, Jane Carr, John Michael Higgins, and Stephen Spinella, among others, that play off each other so well. To have found actors who not only look and speak like the men and women you've seen on CNN and in televised press conferences, but who can act with such precision, passion, talent and dexterity, is truly an amazing feat. Julian Sands, who plays Tony Blair, and Tyrees Allen as Colin Powell, deserve particular praise for the extraordinary portrayals. In addition, Ming Cho Lee's deceptively simple, yet wholly effective set design provides a great forum for Hare's words and the actors exchange of ideas.

 In all, Stuff Happens is a lot like the most recent Star Wars movie. We all know the ending, but watching how it unfolds, and seeing why certain people do what they've done is the true story. It also provides an opportunity for us to learn from our mistakes. Unfortunately, Hare wrote this play in the summer of 2004, before both the US General Election and the most recent UK General Election. Despite knowing full well the collective consequences of our nation's actions – an even more unstable Iraq, a growing insurgency, and over 1600 US troops, and thousands, perhaps hundred of thousands, of Iraqi civilians who have lost their lives for this campaign – the results of those elections provided a kind of twisted validation of the events we watch unfold in Stuff Happens. 

 So, it will be interesting to see how this play ages and is presented in the future. Will it fade from memory just as quickly as our reasons for going to war, or will it provide greater perspective to future audiences, in much the way The Crucible raised concerns about the McCarthy hearings of the 50's. Time, and history will tell. 

 Stuff Happens by David Hare and directed by Gordon Davidson, is playing now through July 17^th at the Mark Taper Forum in downtown Los Angeles. Tickets are available at the Taper Box office, by phone at 213-628-2772 or online by CLICKING HERE. 

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