Just a book

Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and

Contemporary America: A Drama in 30 Scenes

REVIEW BY ANNE O'CASEY
& KAREN FLETCHER

If the title of Stephen Sewell's latest play sounds like an awkward mouthful better suited to an academic treatise than to theatre, that's because the play takes its name from an "academic study" by the play's central character.

Talbot, an Australian academic now teaching "liberal arts" in a New York University, is no firebrand and he's not the brightest crayon in the box. But he has noticed some striking similarities between the propaganda techniques of the Third Reich and those of the current White House incumbents. His friend Max, a better-adjusted resident of the ivory tower, tries to counsel him against publishing his book.

"You're comparing America to Nazi Germany — Are you insane?"

"No — why?"

"Why? Why? Do you teach politics or not?"

"It's an academic study — I can compare "

"Academic study, Talbot? Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Saddam Hussein's Iraq — yes! That's a study. That makes sense. Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Tasmania, for fuck's sake — Even that's all right. But Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America?! Are you out of your cotton-picking mind?!"

"It's just a book."

"Shit, mate, you don't get it, do you?"

"Get what?"

Max is writing a book too, "sort of postmodern — you know — does the state exist? That sort of thing — something for the CV."

Back in Australia, his department has been closed by the "economic irrationalists" ("It's the same user-pays shit all over the world... You can't run a course unless its full of Asian millionaires' sons.") and he's got his heart set on a green card and a US teaching job, like Talbot's, that pays "shitloads".

Jack, the head of the department, has had his doubts about Talbot for some time. At a dinner party at Talbot's apartment (which boasts a sensational view of the black hole that used to be the World Trade Center), he is discomfited by Talbot's dismissal of the "war on terror" as political myth.

When Talbot is physically attacked in his office by a mysterious man, Jack is less than sympathetic. When it occurs to him that the assault may have been part of a "security operation" and that Talbot may be under investigation for being "a terrorist sympathiser", he calls the terrorism hotline, terrified about the fallout from sponsors (Price Waterhouse, AOL and the Guggenheim) if he was seen to have hired such a person.

The department lawyer, Stan, protests that the university ran a security check on Talbot before he was hired.

"So fucking what?" replies Jack. "We've had security checks on the whole fucking country and its still crawling alive with the bastards."

Myth, Propaganda and Disaster could be an allegorical play about what happens to academics who fail to adjust to the political agenda of the day, but the allegory is littered with references to the current, real-life activities of the US state. What happens to Talbot is also not so different to what has happened to intellectuals at other times, in other places.

Playwright Stephen Sewell told Green Left Weekly that the play "wrote itself", as a result of the intense fear he felt when he watched the US war machine begin moving after September 11, 2001.

"I thought I was going crazy in the lead up to the war on Iraq", he said. "Such blatant lies from such blatant liars. But when I took part in the demonstrations on the streets, I realised that people weren't believing the lies."

Sewell wanted to use theatre, like mass demonstrations, to validate and strengthen people's reaction to the war.

"Theatre can be a space where people can feel sane and, like in the street, experience something together that helps make you feel real... I am not primarily a polemicist or a political person. What I am aiming for in all my work is to reintegrate people who, in this kind of society, are disintegrated by the experiences they have on a daily basis."

Like Talbot, Sewell feels a responsibility to swim against the tide of ideological compliance and complicity.

"This is the most critical time we have ever known. Democracy is under assault in all nations. It is absolutely critical that every writer does everything they can to protect and extend democracy at this time of great danger.

"As a writer, I am absolutely affected by these assaults on democracy. There is an artistic climate — perhaps affecting film more directly than theatre — which says 'let's not talk about these things; the audience does not want to know about S11'. So in the US we have all these action movies aimed at killing terrorists, rather than looking at what really happened. The cultural attempt to appropriate S11 is a crucial ideological battle. In Australia we are a bit of a distance from it but in the US it is fierce."

Myth, Propaganda and Disaster is an angry, political play that will jar audiences accustomed to the gentler, more complacent musings of playwrights closer to the postmodern Max than the honest, plain-speaking Talbot.

The continued existence of theatres like Melbourne's Playbox, willing and able to properly stage a play like this, is precious beyond reckoning. The Playbox production boasts fine acting, particularly by Alison Whyte as Talbot's liberal, patriotic and terrified wife Eve, and very effective direction. The simple set design and costuming cleverly conveys a sense of post-9/11 New York, in all its terror. It can only be hoped that the play will be taken up by theatre companies in other states.<|>n

From Green Left Weekly, June 25, 2003.
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