Crimes of the P.M.
By Terry Stoller
Called to Account: The Indictment
of Anthony Charles Lynton Blair for the Crime of Aggression Against
Iraq: A Hearing
Edited by Richard Norton-Taylor
The Tricycle Theatre
269 Kilburn High Road
London
Box office: 020-7328-1000
The Tricycle Theatre in northwest London, which
has been staging verbatim government inquiries since 1994, this year
initiated its own investigation. Director Nicolas Kent enlisted two
lawyers, Philippe Sands and Julian Knowles, to hold hearings in January
and February 2007 on the question: is there a basis for indicting Tony
Blair as a war aggressor? Edited by Guardian journalist Richard
Norton-Taylor, who has compiled most of the Tricycle’s verbatim plays,
the proceedings have become its latest tribunal play: Called to
Account: The Indictment of Anthony Charles Lynton Blair for the Crime
of Aggression Against Iraq: A Hearing.
Testimony for Called to Account is drawn
from voluntary sources inside and outside government. The eleven witnesses
who appear onstage include Richard Perle, chair of a Pentagon advisory
group during the leadup to the war in Iraq; former U.N. weapons inspector
Scott Ritter; an Iraqi Kurd living in Britain; a Chilean ambassador
to the U.N.; British journalists and officials; Tory and Labour Members
of Parliament, most notably Clare Short, now an Independent Labour M.P.
who in spring 2003 resigned her Cabinet post.
A key issue in the play is the advice of Blair’s
Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, on the legality of going to war, which
seemed to change over a ten-day period in March 2003, easing the path
to war. Other concerns explored: whether the intelligence on weapons
of mass destruction was manipulated; the real impetus for going to war;
the timing of Blair’s commitment to military action; and the leaked
“Downing Street memo” of July 2002, which revealed that Blair and other
top British government officials had been informed that the U.S. believed
military action in Iraq was “inevitable” and that “the intelligence
and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
As in his other tribunals, Kent has replicated
the hearing room, this time an uncluttered one, dominated by a U-shaped
table with chairs for the legal teams and a witness. Plasma screens,
which have become a staple of the Tricycle’s tribunals, project the
written evidence that the lawyers refer to, drawing the audience into
a consideration of the statements and deeper into the event.
In any verbatim play, the actor’s challenge is
to re-present a real person. In this production, actress Diane Fletcher
appears to channel Clare Short. Even if you’re not familiar with Short’s
actual vocal and physical mannerisms, which I’m not, audience comments
and laughter of recognition corroborate the many reviews that complimented
the performer for being on the mark. Fletcher’s Short oozes disdain
for “Tony,” his method of governing by informal groups of personal appointees,
his dispensing charm while telling lies. Short was concerned in February
2003 that Blair would not wait for U.N. authorization of the war and
decided to consult with the Prime Minister’s wife. When the prosecution
asks why she took that step, her response is just a bit eccentric. She
was getting “desperate” about international law, she says, and thought,
“Well, Cherie is a human rights lawyer and you know, she and Tony have
a very close relationship—why not give it a try?”
A core group of actors regularly appear in the
tribunals, and those I’ve spoken to express pride about their involvement
in this important body of political theater work. Thomas Wheatley portrays
Sands who represents the prosecution, overseeing the inquiry with intense
concentration and a probing intelligence. David Beames as Scott Ritter
is an outspoken cowboy-like American, telling it like it is about WMD.
William Hoyland (who portrayed Donald Rumsfeld in the Tricycle’s verbatim
play about Guantánamo Bay) plays two government officials, one a worldly-wise,
almost flippant commissioner for the British intelligence services.
Asked how Blair in March 2003 could be “unequivocal” in his belief that
Iraq had breached the 2002 U.N. resolution calling for disarmament and
further inspections, he replies, “Your guess is as good as mine.”
The aim of the hearing is to test the evidence,
and Called to Account can be slightly dry at times, but it
is mostly engrossing. Past tribunals at the Tricycle have had strong
emotional centers, as in The Colour of Justice (1999), about
the police investigation into the murder of a young black man, and Bloody
Sunday (2005), about the 1972 killing of Irish civil rights marchers
by British soldiers in Londonderry. In Called to Account, although
they are not the focal point, the ghosts of tens of thousands of people
who have died in Iraq since the war began hover over the proceedings.
As an American watching the play, I couldn’t help feeling the government
leader who must be held accountable for the Iraq tragedy is President
George W. Bush.
Called to Account is framed with the
arguments by the prosecutor and the defense, delivered directly to the
audience. In the end, it’s not clear that there are indeed legal grounds
for a case against the Prime Minister. But as in all its other verbatim
plays, the Tricycle has provided its audience with a keen exploration
of a critical issue as well as a good night out.