Stuff Happens
(Photo © Michal Daniel)
The British playwright David Hare wants to make certain that no one misconstrues the nature of Stuff Happens, his political drama now on view at The Public Theater, which graphically covers the questionable domestic and international negotiations leading to and through the Iraqi war situation as of spring 2006. He writes in a program note, “This is surely a play, not a documentary, and driven by its themes as much as by its characters and story.” And he notes that “less than a quarter of the play quotes the public statements of the politicians verbatim.”
This may be true, but many audience members will believe that most of the dialogue is taken word for word from utterances made by the script’s ripped-from-the-headlines figures: George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, etc. Hare ought to understand that, by beginning this taunting piece with the real-life “stuff happens” retort that was insensitively tossed off by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (Jeffrey DeMunn) in the early days of the Iraqi siege, he’s strongly implying that what follows will be just as factual. He should also realize that using members of the ensemble as narrators suggests that what he’s presenting is tantamount to a theater documentary, one with a potent whiff of propaganda.
The documentary effect is further heightened by the matter-of-fact manner in which director Daniel Sullivan stages Hare’s cheekily ambitious opus. He constantly moves his 16 capable and versatile actors efficiently through Hare’s sound-bite scenes. Much of the time, the players maneuver the maroon swivel-chairs that serve as the only furniture in the gray strip of playing area with which set designer Riccardo Hernandez has divided the Newman Theater. Jess Goldstein’s blue suits, red ties, and other appropriate government-circles uniforms, Pat Collins’s lighting, and Dan Moses Schreier’s sound add to the impression that honest-to-goodness, real-life occurrences are being captured for posterity.
Stuff Happens reworks Lord Acton’s famed dictum by demonstrating that power prevails and absolute power prevails absolutely — at least, for the time being. In Hare’s world, as in the real world, George W. Bush (played by Jay O. Sanders, a so-so look-alike but an astonishing sound-alike for the President) is the leader of the globe’s one superpower. So, even after dealing with more level-headed voices including the demurring Secretary of State Colin Powell (a suave Peter Francis James) and Great Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair (a typically deft Byron Jennings), Bush ultimately gets his way.
His way, of course, is to invade Iraq in a preemptive strike that Dick Cheney (Zach Grenier, playing lubricity well) encourages with inconclusive intelligence as the rationale. Incidentally, Hare hews to the position that Iraq became a Bush administration target in response to the September 11 attacks, and not, as many observers believe to be the case, that the war plan was already in development when G.W.B. took office. Meanwhile, his then-adviser Condoleezza Rice (Gloria Reuben, the cast’s most amazing mirror image) remains the President’s official lubricant and apologist. “I’m determined to leave this job without anyone figuring out where I stand on any major issue,” she says with hilarious sanguinity.
Hare has Americanized some of the text since the play’s debut in London and, more importantly, has slightly altered the characterization of Powell while still promoting him as a good guy who’s marginalized and humiliated by Bush’s determination to make war. Moreover, the dramatist depicts Blair — particularly in a scene at the President’s Crawford, Texas ranch — as not so much Bush’s poodle but as a pit bull who ultimately reaches the end of his leash.
Still, Hare needs to face some truths about the play’s possible reception. Stuff Happens may be irresistible to Democrats and those unafraid to call themselves “Liberals,” while others may find it altogether resistible as a Bushwhackumentary. Moreover, the author may have to wait at least a few years before theatergoers in large percentage can fully appreciate this work as the true play he says it is. Yes, Stuff Happens is a play about power in the tradition of a Shakespearean history but, wisely, the Bard of Avon only dramatized events that were far in the past.
