Edinburgh 2002

Fringe

The Guys
The Lyceum

Claire Fox

The Guys, Anne Nelson's play, has made a brief sell out appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe, fresh from its US debut.

This production hogged Scottish - indeed UK - newspaper headlines long before its cast arrived in Scotland. Firstly, its explicit theme of 9/11 fulfilled the insatiable need to reflect on events in New York last September.

Additionally, that the two-hander had Hollywood stars, be they self-consiously liberal dissenters from the usual glitter of tinsel town, was enough to ensure acres of newsprint, perhaps rather taking from Fringe's usual commitment to allowing the unknown to become known through the hard job of treading the boards and having to build their audiences through daily flyering.

The presence of Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon performing at the Fringe meant this was no ordinary play. But having seen the play, ordinary is exactly how I would describe it. The premise is that a fire chief, who has lost eight of his men in the rescue attempt in the rubble of the twin towers, has to speak at his men's 'funerals'. Of course, these will not be traditional funerals as none of the bodies have been recovered, but rather memorials.

In the absence of coffins, and with the mass of grief with so many dead, the chief's words will need to be particularly effective for the families concerned. But he, so used to action in the field rather than reflection, does not know where to start. Cue our heroine, an ex journalist, now removed directly from the writing field due to family commitments, finds a way to make a contribution to helping after the tragedy.

Sarandon conveys her character's frustration at having failed to find an avenue to help; blood not needed, no survivors. Now she can help by writing eulogies for the eight dead firemen. The whole exercise then is premised on the journalist feeling more involved.

One weekend, the fire chief comes to her house and tells about each individual man. His words are awkward, and Tim Robbins plays the part of the inarticulate chief, in pain, unable to spin his men's ordinary stories into suitable testimonies. Of one he says, he was just your average guy; there is the joker and clown, not even on duty that day, popping in to see his mate. There's the proby (probationer) only in the station three weeks; what can you say of someone you know so little.

The premise of the play is that these ordinary lives can be made to come alive and be honoured through good writing. And maybe it's the failure of the writing that left me so cold. But maybe also, it's the reality that the response to Sept 11th was the recounting of 1000s of these stories every day in the press. Weeks later, reading the endless stories in the New York Times, I was still moved to tears by these real stories; in the Lyceum, hearing composite stories, nothing was added to the experience except a lack of authenticity.

In an after performance interview Robbins told the press that the power of the piece lies in the idea that the conversations could have benne transcribed by a tape recorder. But he misses the crucial point that art needs to be more revealing and not simply recounting what we already know. When watching Snatches at the Assembly Rooms, a clever performance piece that uses the actual transcripts of Linda Tripp's taped conversations with Monica Lewinsky to reflect on the Clinton scandal, I realised that this was not drama, but rather a clever revue or sketch which didn't merit the tag of drama.

The performances in The Guys were were undoubtedly strong; the calibre of actors did shine through. Tim Robbins became that fire chief seamlessly although he started off rather too quietly and we missed some of his earlier words. This was a read through of the play, with few props and little set, but this did not make the performance any less convincing. Sarandon was a little too comfortable as the liberal journalist trying to make herself feel better by contributing her professional writing skills to the aftermath. After all, as she herself admits, here is a liberal actress trying to make herself feel better by contributing her acting skills to the aftermath.

But one of the problems I had was in relating to the journalist, who was wide-eyed in telling us that she had never imagined, previous to her encounter with the chief, that fire stations contained so many multi-layered characters. She had never considered the idea that firemen were family men, had individual quirks...But a journalist with so little imagination that she had failed to notice that firemen are human too could elicit little sympathy.

The one thing hack journalists traditionally have an eye for and experience of is people from all walks of life. Speaking direct to the audience, she asked us to share her surprise that every firehouse has a kitchen and that firefighters take their turns at cooking (one of the better jokes is that one victim might have been a food critic if he hadn't joined the fire service).

At one point our chief reveals that he attends dance classes, tango no less. His enthusiasm for the moves and his vivid recreation of a good tango, leave our journalist speechless. We are asked to gasp in amazement that this big lumbering man, is really a light-footed Fred Astair. But the moment is lost in the idea that we would never have imagined him as anything other than a firefighter. The notion that challenging firemen stereotypes is enlightening suggests this is a journalist who doesn't even watch TV.

This is universalism at its most obvious and superficial. Oh how I longed for an evil or corrupt firefighter to emerge, or one who ran away. This might have allowed some drama to emerge, some sense that art was happening on stage instead of testimony, and mawkish testimony at that.

A similar testimonial approach staged by New York University students, Project 9/11: Portraits in Shock (Assembly Rooms) gave us the tales of a number of students playing out what they were doing on the morning of that day. And even without seeing it, you too could write the script; little unexpected here that you won't have read in the media. Human interest stories without the frisson of excitement, danger and and demands that drama should subject any subject to.

I found the production self-indulgent, cliched, trite and more akin to a group hug than a challenging theatrical performance. Little new was revealed, but now familiar stories were re-lived. The show received harsh criticism from a panel at the Roundtable Rumble on the 9/11 theme, and I was most vociferous.

But I now concede that the were two moments which made me think were more effective than anything I flet in The Guys. One of the testimonials is from a student who knows that what she is feeling is emotionally incorrect; she is rather excited to be living though history, she feels little grief, she worries she is not as human as she'd like to be. At another moment a group sing song of It's Raining Men is met be shocked stares. These moments were more than the regurgitation of what we knew and gave us insights.

If only the writer, Elizabeth Hess, had mined these moments to explore a new way into conceiving of the events of September 11th, we might have had a more satisfactory production. Both Sarandon and Robbins, and those involved in Project 9/11 say they hope the plays with help people cope with the events on that day.

As we discussed at the Roundtable Rumble, this is less catharsis and more theatre as therapy, for performers as well as audience members. This therapeutic approach may make some people feel good, but it is no gaurantee of great writing or theatre that makes you think twice.

But, hey, maybe I'm being churlish. At both plays, my fellow audience members on the whole seemed moved. Many embraced at the end of Project 9/11 (OK many were American tourists but I'm trying to avoid sounding anti-American). At The Guys, many critics and pundits have congratulated the play for its writing and performances. The person next to me wiped away tears. The couple next to me held hands especially tightly.

I felt embarrassed to be dry-eyed, and when I admitted my reservations later, some of my peers acted as if I'd just started singing It's Raining Men.

Run over.