Telling Guantanamo

Our ability to understand fiction is based on our exposure to alternative realities, the constant belief that nothing that we see can be entirely realistic. This being said, the use of art in politics has an interesting side effect – the creation of a new reality where the constant is no longer present. In this situation, falsity gains weight and what is real becomes irrelevant. This transformation has been aided by CNN and associates who have disfigured reality into random flashes of picturesque destruction accompanied by a dramatic male voice and techno music. The truth has been watered down to appeal to news attention deficit citizens who can only process incoherent images flashing across a television screen.

Playwright Sharon Pollock uses this intersection between art and politics as a point of departure in her latest play. Man Out of Joint which begins with strobe lights, heavy metal music and prisoners screaming in agony, interjected periodically by brief silences and darkness where interrogation techniques are read by a male voice. A dramatic start to a serious artistic piece. But Pollock makes a great point, removing the protective barrier of a screen and exposing realities that are raw and far from pleasant.

As actor Sam Hageahmad, who plays Mohammad Nechla, explains it, ”seeing the graphic depictions of prisoner abuse on stage, 30 feet in front of you, with real people creates feelings that can’t be reproduced by Internet reports or documentaries. I saw many people leave the theatre in tears because they were so affected. I don’t know if movies can achieve that level of impact. I’ve seen some great shows on the topic but I think we have become hard–wired to thinking that if it’s on TV, it’s not real. There’s a level of insulation that TV provides that is not available in the theatre.“

Pollock provides a large cast, complex main characters and dramatic side-plots that extend beyond the scope of the play. Robert Hay plays the protagonist Joel Gianelli, a civil liberties lawyer who faces daunting challenges in both his personal and professional life. The death of his three year old child and the subsequent disintegration of his marriage plague Joel as he tries to deal with the endless workload he has taken on defending who his coworkers argue are hopeless and controversial clients: Ed Leland and Omar Khadr. Leland (Joel Cochrane) has been imprisoned on a fraud charge but is insistent in his claims that he is just one of many people who knew about the 9/11 attacks before they took place. Through an interesting turn of events, documents given to Joel by Leland inspire Joel to attempt to visit Canadian citizen and Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr. Joel’s choice to further pursue this client increases the tension between him and his grief stricken wife Suzanne (Carrie Schiffler).

Director Simon Mallett guides the story sincerely and his attention to the detail is most apparent. To add to the intensity of it all, Anton deGroot’s set is striking with raised platforms and barbed wire cages that imprison the Guantanamo detainees. The caged detainees in their distinct orange jumpsuits and black hoods act as a backdrop and remain an overwhelming presence throughout the play. Nima Fard, who compellingly plays a hooded detainee Ahmad, asserts that the ”fact that the prisoners are present throughout the play and on stage, relates the notion that these abuses, however clandestine, are impossible to ignore.“ Paradoxically, the fact that the prisoners are brutally tortured in the background while other events occur simultaneously in different locations, affirms the reality that the vast majority of people can easily go on living their lives willfully ignorant of all the injustices in the world.

Pollock has undeniably attained her main goal of bringing attention to the issue of prisoner abuse. The incredible performances by all of the detainees bring to life the physical, psychological, and spiritual torture that occurs in Guantanamo Bay, and other detention facilities all over the world. In addressing prisoner abuse, the play seeks to foremost portray detainees as human beings with names and voices. According to Fard, ”Giving the characters voices and stories re-humanizes them back from the depravity of the dark hoods and orange jumpsuits. I think this was integral to the message. Giving them voices shows that these are real people with real stories.“

Any genocide or atrocity against a group of people can only occur if that group has been adequately dehumanized. Accordingly, the American Administration wants the public to forget that these detainees or ”unlawful enemy combatants“, or whatever you may call them, are still people. The Canadian response to Omar Khadr’s detention has been downright pitiful. Only now that the case against Khadr has been dropped, because military judges ruled that the Pentagon could not prosecute Khadr as an ”unlawful“ enemy combatant, are a small number of Canadian activists taking interest. But the fact remains that the vast majority of Canadians do not support Khadr and are unable to see him as a potentially wronged Canadian citizen, let alone a fellow human being. With the ”us“ and ”them“ attitude, it is easy to ignore and overlook how prison guards used this Canadian teenager as a ”human mop“ to clean up urine and feces, and the other unspeakable forms of torture he has endured over the past five years. Pollock seeks to counter this dangerous mindset by taking the concept of voice and name a step further by mentioning real people in the play like Omar Khadr, and by basing Hageahmad’s character on an actual Guantanamo prisoner named Nechla. Hageahmad drew on this fact that he was portraying an actual person to deliver his gripping and passionate performance. Pollock wants just the opposite from the audience. This political play is not only intended to heighten awareness and invoke reactions, but optimistically it is meant to mobilize.

Pollock successfully uses art in raising awareness and honestly asserts that change must be continually addressed. As Hageahmad insightfully states, ”an important issue to be properly dealt with needs constant action. Art itself cannot provide that. But it can be a force of enlightenment. It can grease those wheels.“ Man Out of Joint brings to light issues that are sensitive by caressing the strings of art, politics and the natural emotions of humans. In doing so, she creates a harmony that brings hearts to tears and minds in motion.

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