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London Review
London ReviewArtefacts
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You came to Baghdad and straight away you were telling us what to do. You shouted. You didn't listen. You didn't know anything. And look at it now.— Raya
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Lizzy Watts as Kelly and Peter Polycarpou as Ibrahim
(Photo: Marc Brenner) |
The story is about Kelly (Lizzy Watts), an English teenage girl meets her absentee father for the first time, having thought he was dead, and discovers that he is Iraqi and she has a half sister in Iraq. Her father, a museum director, brings a very valuable vase for her to look after which she deliberately breaks into three parts. Later he needs the vase to pay a ransom demand on his Iraqi daughter's life but Kelly, with the best of intentions, has further damaged the valuable antique by sticking it up with superglue.
The metaphor is obvious but it works. Kelly, in her preparation to visit her father in his home country, tells us about the history of Iraq, how it was formed from three distinct regions, Mosul in the north, Baghdad in the middle and Basra in the south. When the Americans and British invade Iraq to rid the country of Saddam Hussein, they break the country up and then try to put it back together, badly as if with superglue.
As Kelly finds the exchange of letters between her parents, Susan (Karen Ascoe) and Ibrahim, the actors stand diagonally across from each other and read what her mother and father have written to each other. The scenes in Iraq between Ibrahim and his wife Faiza (Mouna Albakry) and his daughter Raya are played in Arabic. Scenes are set in the family home in Baghdad with the mother telling her daughter the story of the Pied Piper in Arabic, a story which the girl repeats to her kidnappers in English. The set is a red, richly patterned Persian carpet spoiled in places with trails of grey rubble.
The combination of Bartlett's writing the voice of the teenage girl and Lizzy Watts' feisty performance is electric. Kelly is candid, frank and intelligently incisive. It is through Kelly's commentary that we learn so much about Baghdad, exploding popular myths but she also talks in exactly the way that teenage girls do, influenced by popular culture. Peter Polycarpou as Ibrahim seems weighed down by his responsibilities although he had no problem leaving Kelly's mother when she was pregnant, after being offered a job back in Iraq.
The closing scenes see Raya (Amy Hamdoon) in England meeting her half sister and viewing the pieces of the vase which is now in the British Museum. The contrast between the two girls is obvious. Raya is serious, political, determined to stay in Iraq and critical of Western interference in her country and of her father for paying the kidnappers. Kelly manages to walk away.
Mike Bartlett's latest play Contractions opens at the Royal Court at the end of May.
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Artefacts
Written by Mike Bartlett Directed by James Grieve With: Lizzy Watts, Karen Ascoe, Peter Polycarpou, Mouna Albakry, Amy Hamdoon Design: Lucy Osborne Lighting: Hartley TA Kemp Music: Arthur Darvill A nabokov production Running time: One hour twenty minutes without an interval Box Office: 020 7610 4224 Booking at The Bush to 22nd March 2008 and then on tour to 26 and 27 March 2008, Emlyn Williams Theatre, Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Mold. Box Office (0845) 330 3565 7 and 8 April 2008, The McCarthy Studio, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough. Box Office: (01723) 370 541 10 - 12 April 2008, Ustinov Studio, Bath Theatre Royal Box Office: (01225) 448 844 23 and 24 April 2008, Salberg Studio, Salisbury Playhouse. Box Office: (01722) 320 333 30 April 2008, Norwich Playhouse. Box Office: (01603) 598 598 1 – 2 May 2008, Mercury Theatre, Colchester. Box Office: (01206) 573 948 6 – 10 May 2008, Drum Theatre Plymouth. Box Office: (01752) 267 222 Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge based on 27th February 2008 performance at The Bush, Shepherds Bush Green, London W12 (Tube: Shepherds Bush but Metropolitan Line only as Central Line is closed at present) |
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