Theatre review: Room | The Other Side of Conflict

Published on Wednesday 19 May 2010 20:01

ROOM *** THE OTHER SIDE OF CONFLICT *** TRON THEATRE, GLASGOW

ONE of the first decisions for a political dramatist is where to position the characters. Should they be victim or oppressor, agitator or aggressor, observer or participant? It's a crucial choice that affects the polemical force of the finished play.

In Room, for example, playwright Abigail Docherty opts to consider the horror of war at a remove: not from the viewpoint of the assailant, nor of the murdered soldier, but of the soldier's bereaved fiance. In response to a loss beyond her control, Sarah has become a reclusive agoraphobic, neurotically pasting horrific magazine images onto her walls and talking in a detached way about TV programmes that no longer make sense to her.

The problem is that for all Docherty's rich and ornate language and for all Melody Grove's sharp and intelligent performance, the play puts the focus in the least interesting place. There is nothing exceptional about Sarah's shell-shocked bereavement; she reacts with the same incomprehension that any of us might, even about the most blameless death. Meanwhile, the real political action continues unabated and unanalysed by a play that, in spite of Lu Kemp's classy production, feels more like literary conceit than lived experience.

In The Other Side of Conflict you get half a dozen political perspectives as four playwrights consider rough trade, honour killings, underage sex, racist arson and Islamic state control. Performed script-in-hand and newly written – one was turned around on the day – the plays are lively, vivid snapshots of the consequences of the abuse of power.

Playwrights Rob Evans, Lewis Hetherington, Alan McKendrick, Emma Jowett and Oliver Emanuel offer no solutions but – sometimes comically, sometimes tragically – demonstrate how politics infiltrates the domestic sphere, turning even lovemaking into a contentious act.