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Preview: Jack Foley
NEVER ones to shy away from controversy, north London’s
Tricycle Theatre is to follow up last November’s Justifying
War, its dramatisation of the Hutton Inquiry, with an examination
of the plight of the Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Guantanamo – ‘Honor Bound to Defend Freedom’
will play at The Tricycle for a limited time, between May
24 and June 12, 2004, and continues the venue’s theatrical
documentary approach to events in the ongoing ‘war on terror’.
Based on personal testimony, from the families of detainees,
as well as statements from lawyers, government spokesman and medical
experts and other commentators, will be directed by Tricycle artistic
director, Nicolas Kent and Sacha Wares, and will be designed by
Miriam Buether.
Set in Camp Delta, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the piece will focus
on nine Britons and three British residents, who, along with more
than 600 others, of 40 nationalities, have been detained by the
US government, without charge, trial or access to lawyers, since
2001.
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The production comes one month after it was announced that five
Britons are to be released.
The material for the production has been gathered by Victoria
Brittain, ex-associate foreign editor for the Guardian, as well
as South African-born author, Gillian Slovo, and it will also
allude to the 14 foreign nationals currently being held in London’s
Belmarsh prison, which Amnesty International has dubbed, ‘the
Guantanamo in our own backyard’.
The play’s title has been derived from the sign above the
entrance to Camp Delta.
Tricycle is no stranger to tackling controversial issues, having
previously staged accounts of the Nuremberg trials, the Scott
Arms to Iraq Inquiry, and the Hague hearings on the Srebrenica
massacre.
It probably remains most famous for its depiction of the Stephen
Lawrence murder trial, which even enjoyed a brief West End Run,
as well as being broadcast by the BBC.
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