Chicago Tribune feature of Guantanamo

In the recent preview titled "Now playing: Real life - Documentary theatre puts true stories on stage," the Chicago Tribune features TimeLine's Guantanamo and the approach that playwrights Gillian Slovo and Victoria Brittain used to create the play.
Check out the article

Defending the rights of the innocent, the guilty...and the presumed guilty

The issues at Guantanamo are about the rights of all people, whether innocent or guilty. This play as written is primarily focused on the innocence of the detainees in the story, but presenting a play that attempts to defend innocent people is only doing half the job. We’re preaching to the left choir if we do that. The real challenge is to defend the rights of the guilty and the presumed guilty. Because there are surely some guilty people at Guantanamo Bay, and possibly in the play.

So my focus is specifically on the inhumanity of ‘detaining’ people for years without specifically charging them or letting them defend themselves in a court of law. This play acts as a sort of courtroom drama where all of the characters are on trial…even the words and actions of the family members and lawyers who are defending their relatives and clients. Ultimately, I think the entity really on trial in the play is not just the detainees, but America itself, all of us, and the decisions we have made as a country.

I consider myself to be very liberal politically, but for purposes of balance, I have become the voice of the right in this process. I have concerned myself with the challenge of maintaining the rights of a detainee while effectively gathering the intelligence we know we need in order to prevent another 9/11.

I want to take us back to that day and remind the audience about their own feelings at the time. Were you afraid? Were you willing to stand up to the Patriot Act or your friends and neighbors who believed it was the right thing to do? What were you willing to do to get the terrorists? Were you willing to detain one person to prevent another attack and for how long? How about detaining 550 people? As a majority, we reinstated an administration that we knew would break the rules to make us feel safe and try to bring an end to terrorism. It seems a little crazy to me that we hold the president and his administration solely responsible for doing that. We are equally responsible for it, and for finding a way out of it.

I hope people come away from this play with more than a hatred for Guantanamo. I hope people leave thinking about how we have come to a point where so much of the world despises us. How we can find safety and security without resorting to torturous interrogation tactics. About how far they themselves are willing to go to get to the truth. About how you would have handled the aftermath of 9/11 differently and if you are willing to tolerate any violation of civil rights whatsoever to prevent another terrorist attack on American soil.

This is a play of very powerful words and ideas. It’s a living, moving map. Victoria Brittian and Gillian Slovo, the artists who created it, have edited what is essentially a series of monologues so beautifully that the audience will hear a dialogue. The eloquence of the characters’ language and the passion with which they tell their stories has made a piece of riveting and exciting theatre that has played around the country to raves.

Ultimately, this play is what TimeLine is all about - putting as much information about an historical event in the audiences’ hands in order that they may create informed opinions and start talking about what’s happening right now.

Nick Bowling
Director, Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom

What’s your opinion?

As with all TimeLine shows, we hope Guantanamo will spark healthy debate surrounding the issues of the play that face our society today.

Back in 1755, Benjamin Franklin said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

We'd love to know what you think. Please share your thoughts by adding your comments to this posting. Just click on the "comments" link below.

Brian Voelker
Managing Director

Research and Reading Lists

Unlike a play about past history, Guantanamo requires what someone on our production team dubbed “moving target dramaturgy.” In other words, the story of this play’s context is continually unfolding. Within the past two months, Congress has turned up the heat on the question of torture, and the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case on the constitutionality of military tribunals. Meanwhile no one can agree on whether new legislation voids the pending habeas corpus hearings of 186 detainees.

In the course of our research, we’ve found several valuable resources, including:

Guantánamo: The War on Human Rights by David Rose

Inside the Wire: A Military Intelligence Soldier's Eyewitness Account of Life in Guantanamo by Erik Saar and Viveca Novak

Guantánamo: What the World Should Know by Michael Ratner and Ellen Ray

News of the detainees can be found at:
http://cageprisoners.com/

This site also features interviews with playwright Victoria Brittain, and statements by several of the play’s characters (who of course are all real people whose actual words make up the play), including Lord Justice Johan Steyn, lawyer Gareth Peirce, and former detainee Moazzam Begg.

The Center for Constitutional Rights runs a “Guantánamo Action Center” at:
http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/gac/

The CCR provides legal information and resources, and through their Guantánamo Reading Project you can download excerpts from the play.

The London Guardian Unlimited includes news on Guantánamo in their Special Reports section at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/0,13743,1000982,00.html

Many recent articles on U.S. policy are collected at:
http://www.truthout.org/

We’re finding that understanding the arguments between the balance of civil liberties and security encompasses more information than we get with the newspaper headlines.

Jennifer Shook
Dramaturg