Political Fiction
Written by Geoffrey Sykes
Directed by Robina Beard
With Sarah Doyle, Alan Popely, Marc Kay and Karen Cobban
Old Fitzroy Theatre, Woolloomooloo
Until May 6
REVIEW BY LACHLAN MALLOCH
An entertaining new play by Geoffrey Sykes suggests rejection of the mainstream party-political game is our best hope for progressive social change.
When we meet Carl (Alan Popely) in 2006, a government senator, his career on the backbench is waning into obscurity. The cynicism of parliamentary politics in Australia, as well as a recent divorce, has left him feeling hollow and directionless. Politically, Carl's well of unease about the relentlessly anti-social policies of the Howard government is deepening.
Carl constantly refers to "the bastard" while never once mentioning PM John Howard's name. He feels ashamed that politicians with a progressive conscience remained silent while Howard rolled back so many Australian rights. The stultifying conformity of bourgeois politics meant "none of us would break ranks and speak out", because "the party machine" requires you to "be robotic" in order to get along. And with the use of "anti-terrorism" laws to instil fear in the population, "the bastards have taken our peace of mind".
Lee (Sarah Doyle), a left-wing political activist, enters Carl's life as the potential trigger for the rebellion growing inside him.
The directly political nature of Sykes' play, which mentions many recent political scandals, meant it could easily have slipped into a boring didactic piece. Instead, Political Fiction is an intriguing and surprisingly radical drama. Carl and Lee's deepening sexual and political relationship gradually turns bourgeois stereotypes of age, gender, profession and political persuasion on their head.
Carl becomes paranoid that Lee's former membership of the Greens means she's a spy, ignoring her prior involvement in the socialist youth organisation Resistance.
And "Resistance is much worse than the Greens — they're communist!" exclaims Lee.
Lee's exposure to left-wing political currents, as well as a tragic involvement with a South American dictatorship, has convinced her that "people are connected by something deeper than trade". Her understanding of the world is based on human solidarity, enabling her to see the nature of the bourgeois political game from the "outside" more clearly than the "insider" Carl.
Although Carl's words might sound radical coming from a government senator, Lee ultimately believes he has "no idea of the other world".
For me, the best real life comparison with Carl is former intelligence officer Andrew Wilkie. But Carl's political and personal awakening also stand as a metaphor for the discontent brewing in large sections of the Australian population.
Sykes cleverly acknowledges that this discontent with the Howard agenda is occurring against the backdrop of the confusion, pressure to conform and ignorance of political struggles in the Third World that prevail in stable, wealthy countries like Australia.
Political Fiction's major strength is its suggestion that whenever real political change takes place, individual people have to make hard personal choices. There comes a time when we must dispense with old certainties and abandon our hopes for making peace with the system as it stands, for taking comfort in purely "private pleasures".
Sykes also includes a message for would-be expatriates, lefties who might like to take refuge in a seemingly more progressive Western capitalist country. Your country belongs to you, stay here and continue the struggle. Take a personal and political stand, whoever and whatever you are. Start to build an alternative now.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
From Green Left Weekly, April 26, 2006.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.