Neda wants to die, and if this play had worked as I think it was intended, you might have wanted to die a little, too. Regrettably, Luigi Laraia’s earnest, plodding script has a surfeit of rhetoric and a deficiency of story, so that despite some first-rate acting we feel not horror and revulsion but impatience and boredom.
John Leighley (Dr. Richard Tanenbaum) is denominated as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, but he looks and acts more like a mid-level case officer, stuck in a miserable outpost. He sits at a shabby desk in a shabby office (there is a hand-lettered sign announcing his position) to interview Laurent Sasa (Samuel Dumarque Wright), a local fruit vendor who inexplicably speaks excellent English and possesses a broad and deep education. Sasa wants to become a refugee.
Why does Sasa claim refugee status? Who’s out to get him? Beats me. I don’t know because Leighley doesn’t ask and Sasa doesn’t tell him. Instead they engage in chit-chat, which allows Sasa to challenge Leighley about his world-view and his qualifications for his job. It is difficult to imagine a case officer — complaining as he does of the thousands of matters in his portfolio — spending his time in such a manner. It is impossible to imagine the UN High Commissioner of Referees doing so.
Next, Leighley interviews Neda (Karen Elle), a woman who has been subjected to horrible depredations and losses during the war. It is much more obvious why Neda seeks refugee status, but for no clear reason Leighley is unable to move her case any faster than he moves Sasa’s. In fact, at one point he tells her that to become a refugee she will have to go to another camp hundreds of miles away. Neda directs her bewilderment at Leighley, but you may direct it, with similar effect, at playwright Laraia.
It’s hard to tell what the animating principal of this play is. Is it a story about Neda’s efforts to escape her tormentors? Is it a story about how Leighley responds to Sasa’s challenges? About midpoint, we see Leighley bombarded with voices from invisible sources, demanding help and protection. So is this a story about how tough it is to be the UN High Commissioner of Refugees?
What redeems this production is the acting of Elle and particularly Wright. Sasa is a supplicant whose nature is to domineer, and Wright balances these two competing aspects of his personality beautifully. He has a breakdown scene toward the end of the play which he performs with painful effectiveness.
Elle does a nice job of engaging the audience emotionally as she builds up to her climactic scene, in which she describes the atrocities done to her. That scene, incidentally, goes on about three minutes too long, so that Laraia can have Neda explain the moral lesson we are to draw from her suffering. It is a credit to Elle that Laraia’s didacticism doesn’t cost him the audience at that point. Both Wright and Elle are emerging actors looking to hit the big time and I hope they do. They deserve success.
Neda Wants to Die
by Luigi Laraia
Directed by Adam Knight
Choreographer: Adam Knight
Composer: Rachel Sberro
Details and tickets
Tanenbaum is convincing as a confused, indecisive, overwhelmed bureaucrat but not, I’m afraid, as the UN High Commissioner of Refugees. He does an interesting thing with the character: he gives him a verbal tic in which he repeats the first three or four words of a line several times before delivering it in full. It effectively shows Leighley’s indecision and uncertainty but he employs it far too often. Tanenbaum and director Adam Knight should remember Gary Prevost’s dictum: story isn’t life, it’s life’s greatest hits. Moreover, Tanenbaum’s mild, confused Leighley is not convincing as the man who angrily confronts his boss (Stuart D. Rick) or who traps Sasa in a lie, both of which happen toward the end of the play.
I realize that many Fringe shows don’t have the budget for props and special effects but if you can’t pull them off you shouldn’t attempt them. I’m thinking not only of the hand-lettered High Commissioner sign but a scene in which Neda means to show Leighley her scars by dramatically pulling her jacket down and displaying her shoulders. I was sitting in the front row, and her shoulders seemed completely unmarred.
Laraia’s play, drowning in good intentions, is apparently meant to tell us the hideous things that are done to women in wars in Africa. You probably know them already, though, from your news sources or from other, better plays. Watch this instead to see two actors who, with luck and in justice, will be performing at Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth, or the Kennedy Center (at much higher ticket prices) five years from now.
Thank you for your answer.
Having read the materials and listened to Mr Laraia & actors in the public discussion we had here in Germany, I don’t think the production has changed so much as you tell. The play has taken place in a developing country from its beginning 2 years ago, and everyone knows that is impossible for one seeking asylum to go to the Commissioner in person (in Geneva?!). So in my opinion it would be easier – and forgive me, more honest – for you to admit that you misunderstood this important point, instead of informing me now that you got info, at last, about who Mr Guterres is (thank you, Wiki!).
About what you call the ‘right camp’, newspapers over and over say that refugees move, or are moved, from one place to another until a solution can be found.
You say “Sasa” is posing as a fruit vendor but I remember in fact that he talks about having attended some University somewhere, coming from an educated family. Even a child knows that guerrilla leaders disguise themselves, instead of going around dressed in uniform. Pretending to be someone else, incidentally, is the one thing that saves oneself in those situations. You don’t need ‘school’ to see this kind of things, whatever action movie or TV series is enough.
You say that the play ‘never explains why and how the bureaucracy works’: America really has to be Wonderland if you need someone to explain to you how bad bureaucracy can be! You complain that the play is didactic and then you want the playwright to explain why and how a big institution is bureaucratic? Make up your mind. Besides, the trouble with UN or any development institution is there for all to see, it is common knowledge. Do people need to know who Rothko is before seeing the play “Red”? Come on now.
Incidentally, I add that I saw the play with my mother, who is 63 and completely illetterate about the specifics: she understood everything.
One doesn’t need to go to school to understand the issues this play is about. But I think that a critic should. He is not simply ‘audience’ as you write, he has power and, therefore, responsibilities.
Like the Neda team wrote in an earlier message, I feel that you didn’t get this play. It is about violence. Much like “Apocalypse Now” shows how war leads to insanity, the audience doesn’t necessarily question some plausibility in the story.
The playwirght left ‘boring parts in’? Well, this is very subjective Mr. Treavor and clearly shows that you didn’t like the play, which is fine. It is fine that you found it boring, slow or even difficult to understand. But please don’t cherry-pick on things (and wrongly as you did it!!!) only to justify your feeling.
Incidentally, “Neda” is playing there in Washington at George Mason University tonight at 6:30. You should go and see it again. Or maybe not.
Brigitte
Of course the High Commissioner is a human being. He is Antonio Guterres, the former Prime Minister of Portugal. Commissioner Guterres has held this position since June of 2005.
If Leighly is now a case officer, rather than the (fictional) High Commissioner he was in the production I saw, then playwright Laraia has improved his work. That’s good, because the play, frankly, needed a lot of work.
If a playwright wants to write a powerful, convincing work that makes the playwright’s world comprehensible to the audience, it is the playwrights’ responsibility to describe that world in language and events the audience can understand. You accuse me, wrongfully, of not researching the subject matter before watching the play. But a playwright who expects the audience to go to school before watching the work will be disappointed. You do not have to study the AIDS epidemic, for example, or even understand what it was like to be a gay man in America in the 1980s to be moved by *Angels in America.* Tony Kushner took care of that by using clear, unmistakable language and beautifully crafted plotting to make points which anyone could understand. At least in the production I saw, Mr. Laraia was not successful in doing the same thing.
It may be the case that a person like Neda, who seemed perfectly suited for refugee status, would nonetheless be denied that status by the UN bureaucracy,. But *Neda Wants to Die* never explains why, or how the bureaucracy works. Instead we see Leighly pound his head against the wall, endlessly. We in the audience are induced to conclude that everyone in the play (or, more dangerously, everyone in the UN) is crazy, and thereafter occupy ourselves with a problem we can solve.
The coup de grace, as far as I was concerned, was the moment Leighly revealed that Neda was in the wrong camp to achieve refugee status — a good half hour into the play, and after several interrogations. It was obvious that Neda sought refugee status (or else why would she be talking to the High Commissioner for Refugees?). If she could not be declared a refugee, why didn’t Leighly tell her immediately, and arrange for her to be sent to the proper camp?
Of course, we eventually understand how it is that Sasa speaks English well, and has a sophisticated opinion of Franz Fanon. He is a highly educated guerrilla leader. But the problem is that he displays these tools while he is posing as a fruit vendor who has never left his town. The fact that Leighly seems to believe him makes Leighly, to put it kindly, a bit credulous.
When Prevost says that story isn’t life, it’s life’s greatest hits, he is saying that story is life with the boring parts left out. At least in the show I saw, Mr. Laraia left the boring parts in. No playwright can do that, no matter how true to life it is, or the audience will find something else to think about.
I agree that there is a lot to do to fight ignorance. That’s’ the job that the playwright must do himself, particularly if he wants to move his art to an audience beyond his professional colleagues. He must do more than make us see, he must make us understand. And, at least in the show I saw, Mr. Laraia did not do that.
Dear Mr Treanor,
last week I saw “Neda” in Bonn, Germany and I did not experience your “impatience and boredom” and, judging from the clappings, like me all the people that here saw “Neda wants to die”, and certainly those who were moved to tears by it.
I am writing because probably you are an expert in theatre stuff but clearly you are not informed at all about the world of international development. It happens that I am, having worked for years with an NGO. So my words could be a little hard, sorry about that but you made me really angry.
You wrote about “John” being the UN High Commissioner for Refugees: WRONG! He is in fact “a mid-level case officer, stuck in a miserable outpost”, to use your words. (By the way, when you talk about the “High Commissioner for Referees” are you thinking about soccer?). This point seems important to me, because you based most part of your arrogant review on it. I can assure you that the play depicts with great, moving efficacy the tragedy of violence and the drama of the frustration of mid-level case officers. High Commissioner is not a human being as you think but an Agency, mostly based in the field: this is why they often have the hand-lettered sign that you complain so much about.
You wonder why “Sasa” speaks a good English: WRONG! No wonder, he very well explains why and how, if one pays attention to the dialogue.
You find strange that “John” doesn’t solve quickly Neda’s problem: WRONG! I would invite you to spend a couple of days in a developing country in a UNHCR camp and you would quickly understand why your wondering is wrong and, forgive me, plain naive.
Furthermore, everything in this play is based on dozens of interviews about real cases.
Richard Tanenbaum’s depiction of the case officer perfectly reflects the difficulty of those, like me, who work in the field and struggle with wanting to help by being restrained by bureaucracy, politics and higher forces.
Finally, I am a little confused of your quote of a Gary Prevost “story isn’t life…”: what on earth do you mean, or what on earth does he mean? I have another quote for you, this one by Jean Cocteau: “Les critiques jugent les oeuvres et ne savent pas qu’ils sont jugés par elles”. This means, in simple words, that your panning of “Neda” confirms that this play is essential because still there is a lot to do to fight ignorance and lack of education about social themes.
If one googles “Neda”, they can all read your inaccurate, haughty and harsh words. This is an injustice. But “that’s the press, baby… And there’s nothing you can do about it!”
I do respect your opinion about the mise-en-scène, the acting, the directing, etc. and I am sure you can teach me a lot about theatre. What I do not accept is a review, like yours, ¾ based on a lot of misunderstanding, some prejudices and a great ignorance of facts. Probably Laraia’s “didacticism” was not enough in your case. But I humbly think that reading press clippings and simply consulting Wikipedia about what UNHCR does would have been helpful in your case.
For example I read on the press that this play was hosted by the UN in New York, at Nairobi in Kenia, at in various Universities.
And also I was informed that the director and cast work in the field of development and they are not paid for the play.
They gave us the gift of a thrilling, moving depiction of reality. They gave us a lot to meditate on. I hope that it’s not too late for you to meditate too..
Tim, thank you for your review and some of your points are well taken, especially when you consider that this play was written for the World Bank audience and the script went through only a “partial” editing for the general public.
Again it seems that you are trying to find all the answers to questions that, in our mind at least, are fair but unnecessary. Let’s use Laurent’s journey as a starting point. He is broken, he cannot continue to live a life of pain and he wants a chance to cleanse his soul. John gives him the perfect opportunity, e.g. he loves boxing, he is disillusioned, he is an outcast too, he is relentless in his pursuit of the truth. When John finally confronts him Laurent says “I’m just another victim”, John doesn’t give up an inch: “No, you are not”. Laurent needed to hear that, he needed validation from someone he has learned to respect; once he has that validation it’s a foregone conclusion, there is only one conclusion to his journey.
The play isn’t really about the characters, it’s more about violence and what violence does. We didn’t want to judge or examine the characters outside of that destructive force that violence is. We think that choices like judging or redemption or forgiving are personal journeys and we leave that up to the character or to the spectator.
We thank you again for the time to review it and we invite you to watch the play again.
Well. all right. I didn’t want to give away your ending, but sure, Laurent has brought Neda to the compound. But why did Laurent stay? Why did he engage Leighley? Why did he pretend to claim asylum when he didn’t want it? Why didn’t he simply leave, having brought Neda to safety?
“Who’s out to get him?” Doesn’t it matter?? Beats you? Maybe next time (I doubt there will be a next time for you) you see this play you will try to watch it with your heart and not just your head. Toward the end of the play Laurent says to Neda “You see..I told you I’d lead you to safety”. Laurent is afflicted by his actions, he is looking for some form of redemption; bringing Neda to the UN compound, saving her, saving one life will be his last effort so that he can find a modicum of redemption amid all the suffering. That’s why he is there. And John knows it “You are not here to claim asylum, are you?…I think you want to tell me everything”. Laurent needs a confessor before he finds a way out of his unbearable past.
Try that next time.