The Women of Lockerbie
By Deborah Brevoort
NIDA
Parade Studio, Kensington, Sydney
until June 6
REVIEW BY BRENDAN DOYLE
On December 21, 1988, a bomb exploded on board Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all passengers and crew, and 13 villagers at the crash site.
This play, however, is not about the details of that mass murder, which the US government quickly blamed on Libya. It is set seven years after the bombing, during a memorial service for the victims and their families.
The play opens with fictional American couple Bill and Madeline, played by Kevin Jackson and Elaine Hudson, who have come from the US for the service. Their 20-year-old son was killed in the explosion. Madeline roams the hills in the mist, looking for any trace of her son.
Meanwhile Bill is joined by four strong local women who have their own agenda for the memorial service. They tell him that George Jones (Garry Scale) has been sent by the US state department to oversee the burning of all the items of clothing that remain from the crash. But the women of Lockerbie are determined to wash the clothes and return them to the families, as an act of love they believe will go some way to breaking the cycle of violence and retribution. The play follows this confrontation with unfeeling bureaucracy, as well as the unending grief of Madeline.
The climax of the play sets Madeline, who is full of self-pity, against Olive (Wendy Strehlow) who reveals she lost a daughter and a husband when the "planeload of Americans" came down on her sleepy village. While Madeline mourns over her own loss, Olive screams at her that the US military had previously shot down an Iranian airliner, and that maybe the Pan Am bombing was revenge for that.
What interests playwright Brevoort, according to director Mary-Anne Gifford, is "the perpetuation of evil" which is the result of "any act of violence or hatred ... Unspeakable things are happening on every side and we must be held responsible and we must respond. But how?"
This finely honed play, which runs for only 80 minutes, has the formal beauty of a Greek tragedy. Enormous work has gone into making the script lean and powerful. Originally produced in New York, it was further developed at various theatres in the US. If only more plays were given such meticulous treatment in Australia! The result is a play where not a minute is wasted in verbiage — where you are gripped from the opening moment and not released until the end.
The power of this production lies in the finely controlled acting and directing, which keep us hovering on a razor edge of high emotion. The play doesn't try to deliver a neatly packaged political message. It is left up to the audience to must bring to the experience our own knowledge and understanding of the causes of such terrorist acts.
The Women of Lockerbie
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, May 26, 2004.
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