VICTOR JARA 40TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT at ST. ANDREWS in the square GLASGOW

Organised by the Alistair Hulett Memorial Trust this concert was on the 40th Anniversary of the brutal , callous , execution of the legendary Chilean Folk Singer and Activist for the poor,needy , deprived and disenfranchised in what is still today one of the most shamefully unequal societies in our day.A shining beacon of neoliberalism whose privatised education system using vouchers is one admired by our own Education Secretary Michael Gove , a system that has been attracting many massive demonstration on the streets of Chiles cities , especially Santiago. 

Unfortunately the rump of the Communist Party has joined the grouping under former leader Bachelet which is expected to win the Presidential elections later this year , a leader of the socialist block which signed up to the constitution which enshrined the Chicago school economics , which meant even though the socialists controlled the country for 20 years the economic policy remained the same , a very privatisation friendly mode including far reaching reforms in Education which were cemented under the last Bachelet Government which introduced reforms which pushed forward the neoliberal model to such an extent that present incumbent described Education as a "consumer" item , which gives rise the the extrapolation that those who can pay the most get the best "product".To their very great credit the candidates of the Access-For-All Education demonstrations have refused to back any of the choices. instead putting up their own.

As the BBC report above states the Education policies , closely followed by the UK deprive the poorer students from getting the best available resources prior to further education and then are prevented to go to University by costs that are unaffordable by low income households , thus perpetuating the cycle of poor getting poorer, this in a country that is regarded as one of the richest in the region:

"They say middle-class students have access to some of the best schooling in the region, while the poor have to be content with under-funded state schools. The country has no free universities.
The campaign for educational reform is the biggest protest movement Chile has seen since the return to democracy in 1990."

The night raised funds for the the Trust and also Justice For Victor Jara Campaign , a timely cause as lawyers acting on behalf of the survivors have opened legal proceedings in the US to bring to Justice one of the eight alleged killers who has been living in Florida for many years.
According to the above article from The Telegraph Newspaper.

"Mrs Jara was allowed to take his corpse from the morgue as long as she buried him without ceremony. His body was exhumed in 2009 on a judge's orders to establish his identity and cause of death. When he was reburied, thousands turned out for the funeral that he was denied after his death.
Mrs Jara moved back to London with her two daughters a month after the coup, after British diplomats urged her to leave for her own safety. She spent the next 10 years travelling the world to highlight what had happened in Chile, before moving back to Santiago in 1983.
There she established the Victor Jara Foundation to keep her husband's memory and artistic legacy alive and fought relentlessly to gain justice for him in death. She is closer than ever to achieving that mission."

Joan Jara set up The Victor Jara Foundation to publicise and highlight the shocking circumstances of her husband and also to give voice to the relatives of several thousands who disappeared and still have not been accounted for to their families , denying the right to bury their loved ones with dignity.

The other defendants  have not yet been brought to trail in Chile , though the painfully slow wheels of justice may slowly be moving in the right direction.

The performers themselves were a varied and brilliant combination of old veterans who fight Pinochet back in 73 and energetic younger crop who have received and propounded the message that you always back the disempowered  grassroots against the degradations and oppressive abuses of dictators.

Penny Stone rounded of the rainbow journey of neoliberalism with enchanting songs linking the murder of Victor to the plight of the Palestinians from the same people who , still today, laud Pinochet and follow many of his Chicago school based policies.

The evening was rounded of by the seven decade veteran activist and folksinging chronicle Peggy Seeger.

There was also a compilation CD especially made for the event containing contributions from the performers and also the legendary Christy Moore.

Costing £5 the proceeds went jointly to the Alistair Hulett Memorial and Victor Jara Fund.

DUNSINANE at the THEATRE ROYAL GLASGOW

At the time of the Iraq war in 2003 David Greig has gone through a spell of watching several productions of Macbeth , being both fascinated at the universal themes of power and what happens when a tyrant is overthrown at the request of a cabal that promises peace,stability and an easy ride from a grateful population who will greet the foreign intervention force with flowers and scented garlands.Basically he was wondering what happened next? , after Macbeth has been killed.Not in a way to create a sequel to Shakespeare , but to examine and try to understand how an invading foreign occupying army "invited" by a few dissidents and emigres could foster stability in a hostile society with age old established ways of managing continuity and conflict in a complex mixture of familial , clan and tribal constantly changing bonds , shifting allegiances in which any external interference could set off a whole series of clashes and altering of cohesive balances which embroil evermore resources both from within and without , only adding fuel to the burning , contagious furnace.



In this interview for The Oxford Times David Greig gives more insight to his thought processes at the time he was mulling over the ideas of writing the play.

“After seeing MacBeth in Dundee I realised I knew most of the places mentioned like Burnham Wood and Dunsinane, and that Shakespeare had never been there. So that great Scottish play was written by someone who wasn’t Scottish and hadn’t been to Scotland, yet he reduced the great King Macbeth. Now we know a lot more about him and have realised he was a good king, that interested me into writing a response.
“Plus the Iraq War had just started, which was very much a story of overthrowing a tyrant without preparing for the aftermath and the three things came together very simply. If you’d said it was a follow-up to MacBeth I’d have said ‘what, don’t be ridiculous’ but I realised too late what I’d done and it was terrifying and I nearly had a panic attack. All I could think was ‘what the hell do you think you’re doing’?”

The plot follows an English soldiers perspective , a bemused , exposed and as he loses his friends to attrition and exposure to inhospitable elements an increasing confused , baffled observer of his leaders , Siward flailing attempts to  impose and set-up a stable regime.

Unlike Shakespeares depiction Macbeth lasted 15-20 years on the throne , at a time when some kings only lasted a few months , a King who would have a fairly large and loyal base that would not accept his overthrow by aid of a massive foreign force , which would have been capable of and willing to fight a long drawn out resistance war against an enemy whose very presence was a major obstacle to peace.
Greig began the play clearly wanting to talk about the present conflicts ,  to bring to bear peoples knowledge of Afghanistan to help understand 10th century scotland and conversely understand the futility of imposing a political solution with military force over a population that becomes more hostile and entrenched the more force is used by the unwelcome occupier , in this case an English army trying to subdue tribal Scotland by occupation and its parallels  with regime change ,  the question is it possible to impose peace on some other persons behalf ( humanitarian intervention, peacekeepers) is always at the forefront of the audience watching the tension and drama on the stage , is it possible in trying to "make" peace you increase the chances of war and conflict in one that becoming increasingly rhetorical when applied to Afghanistan.

The action brilliantly counterpoints between the elite leaders and the generally bemused soldiers , many of them who would have been about the same age as those we are sending to Afghanistan today.Boys fighting far from home a war he doesnt understand and where the enemy re-defined the terms of the war , simply by being there , constantly being invaded , in being as well as physically , by a ponderous aggressive enemy .

In this video the playwright explains the processes involved in the genesis and evolution of the play from idea to performance.



In the video below the actors discuss their roles during rehearsals , showing a very perceptive knowledge of the metaphors behind the staging.

 

The play also examines  how Siward was told that the mission was would be easy , a tyrant would be deposed and the populace will rejoice and shower the invaders with flowers , it turns out not to be easy , the more they try to control it the more destabilised it becomes.A process that still plays out as certain forces try to get major powers to intervene decisively in conflicts across the Globe.



This review from The Guardian gives a good overview of the work , though the one comment seems to miss the point when complaining the play does not have a strong finish as the whole point is that the scheme peters out as a tragic miscalculated bloody whimper.

"The more the English try to get to grips with this alien land – its awkward geography, its hostile climate, its complex clans and affiliations – the more clumsy their efforts to tame it look. The greater their level of misunderstanding, the more an audience in Scotland finds itself empathising with the occupied nations of the Middle East."

NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND at the CITIZENS THEATRE GLASGOW

Citizens Dostoyevsky mini-fest is completed with a superbly executed and highly thoughtful , stimulating performance of Notes From The Underground.

The staging captures the universal angst with unobtrusive , yet highly visualising use of modern social-media technology.A well judged balancing act which seasons the discourse of the character with added relevance to many who are approaching the times in their career and lives when they can also render a testimonial of how their existence shaped out.

As the Citizens Theatre blurb states "To coincide with our production of Crime and Punishment Debbie Hannan directs this play based on a novella by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

A bitter and misanthropic man sits in the dark nest he has created for himself, scrawling his paranoid, confused memoirs. Torn between his derision for the ‘ant hill’ of humankind and his searing contempt for himself, his isolation leads to his retreat Underground.
He scrapes at the ugliest parts of his ego until an encounter with a real life ant throws everything into disarray…"

This review from The Scotsman captures the mood:

"In a bold stroke, Debbie Hannan’s powerful production exposes the contemporary quality of Dostoevsky’s obsession with self-examination and self-presentation by making Samuel Keefe’s Underground Man an obsessive user of social media. His older self appears on screen meditating on his need to retell the story, his younger self records interactions with others on smartphone and tablet."

Two of my friends , one who had not read the novella , and another who had when in his early twenties were both captivated , one promising to search out and read the Book and the other , dryly , commenting as he approaches the age of the character he found himself nodding with wholehearted agreement the bitter,angry rant from beginning to end , something i have been doing for many years.

The staging ends with my favourite line from the book "Can a thinking man ever Respect himself", my two companions had less of that than when they started , which i think is a good sign that the play , and the Book , has done the job. 

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT at the CITIZENS THEATRE

A newly refurbished Citizens Theatre was blessed with a World Premier worthy of the venue and the City artistic scene.A preview premier of a very rare attempt to bring the Fyodor Dostoyevsky masterpiece Crime And Punishment onto the stage.


A very brave , challenging feat is to attempt to translate the great novel by Dostoyevsky onto a stage setting.Dostoyevsky was not a natural stage dramatist , his novel is littered with moments of the protagonist Raskolnikov starring at his best Friend , his redemptive muse Sonya and various walls of his loft for whole minutes at a time , something even Beckett would not try on a stage.

In this Scotsman  article Adapter Chris Hannan shared his anything but unambitious vision for the production.

"“It’s an amazing experience: a crime thriller plus a novel of ideas; a whodunit meets Karl Marx and Jesus Christ,” says Hannan. “Reading the novel, you enter into the mind of the central character, the student who commits murder, and go on a huge emotional and spiritual journey with him. That’s the journey Dominic and I want to give theatre audiences.”"

The psychological tensions between Raskolnikov and the other characters , especially the investigating  magistrate would be a deterrent to any lesser talents than this brilliant team of adapter and director.But , they pull this off brilliantly , whilst preserving the major thrusts of the Book.



A remarkable aspect of the direction is the intimacy of the one-to-one exchanges that are central to the Book and its pulling power to draw the reader into the minds and currents of the discourses of the characters whilst having so many People on an open plan stage , adding to the dynamic tension the multi-layers of People who are influenced by the actions of the few.

You can get more information of the talents producing the play in this Liverpool based paper article.

"Dominic Hill’s raw new production will bring this classic story to life for audiences, drawing inspiration from Hill’s own experience working in a raucous Russian theatre. The intimacy and intensity of the rehearsal room where storytelling is honed and refined will be exposed on stage, punctuated by moments of high drama.
Hill said, “Crime and Punishment is one of the greatest novels ever written and I’ve always felt that the theatrical characters and gripping plot would make for an exciting stage show. The novel is rarely adapted for the stage and Chris Hannan’s new version will make it fresh and accessible to those who are devoted fans as well as those who never made it cover to cover.”"