Power Play
Kathleen Chalfant, who is best known for her work in Wit for which she earned Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Obie, Drama League, Lucille Lortel and Los Angeles Ovation awards and Angels in America for which she garnered Tony and Drama Desk nominations is currently appearing in Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom off-Broadway. Here, the accomplished performer describes her first experience seeing the piece and her reaction when asked to join the American cast.
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From the moment I saw it on July 3 this year in London, I knew I wanted to be a part of Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom in any way I could. I went with my husband Henry and my niece Maggie Zackheim, a young filmmaker who was working in London, and when it was over none of us could speak or get out of our seats for a long time. It was one of the most powerful theatrical experiences any of us had ever had. The play was developed by the Tricycle Theatre in London from interviews and documentary materials; nothing was invented and the effect of it is what theater is meant to do: make you understand the predicament of the characters in the most profound and immediate way.
Soon after we got back, Allan Buchman, the visionary producer of The Culture Project, told me that the play was coming and would open before the Republican National Convention in August and asked me if I was interested in meeting Nicolas Kent, Sacha Wares and Gillian Slovo about the possibility of playing Gareth Peirce, a heroic human rights lawyer and the only woman in the play. I said, "Where do I sign up?" They asked me to do it, and I went off to Italy to celebrate and learn my lines. By the time I got back, everyone else had been rehearsing for a week and I could see that this very spiffy American cast was going to make the play live here at least as fully as it had done in London. There were 11 more days of rehearsal; a couple of days of tech, and then people began to come. The effect was electric. Now I could see how it worked from the other side, watching audiences get caught up in the lives of the people in the show and finding themselves stirred to the depths of their being by the experience. There is a lot of Aristotle¹s pity and terror here.
I think the play has a different effect on American and British audiences. In Britain, the issue is very clearly the predicament of the British detainees, the legality of their detention and whether, because Britain is a part of the coalition, these people would not properly be dealt with in England. In fact, the play has helped draw attention to the detainees and was, at least in part, responsible for galvanizing public opinion to pressure the British government to secure the repatriation and exoneration of five of the none British citizens held in Guantanamo. Four citizens and two residents are still in Cuba.
But in America, because there are no American detainees in Guantanamo, the issue is the morality of the whole idea of detaining a group of people outside the law indefinitely without determining their guilt or innocence. And because almost all of the people who have so far been released from Guantanamo, including the five British detainees, have gone free without being charged, we know that at least some of the people there are probably there by mistake. The play makes you ask the questions, "What is being done in my name?" and "What can I do about it?" And now that the Supreme Court has determined that the detainees are not outside the law, the question is even more urgent. More than anything I¹ve read or seen, this play brings home the real consequences of giving up our most cherished principles in the face of the terrorist threat. I think that is so because it is such a wonderfully realized piece of theater and even though it makes me ache each night, I've never been prouder of anything than of being part of this extraordinary company.
The other thing you'll see when you come to Guantanamo is some of the best acting in New York or anywhere. These guys are fabulous as they move between parts and take on all these lives. Once more we see that American actors can do anything.