Hello there,
One of the principle elements of politics - perhaps always - is the extent to which principle itself determines action, as contrasted with the pull and temptation of joining a wider consensus, or at least what can be perceived as such. The crux of a dilemma within the progressive, social democratic tradition of European and American politics for decades, this issue - itself pregnant with an existential challenge - was explored with potent candor in the British political drama of 1993, "The Absence of War", by David Hare, which I happened to see an new rendition of in early April of this year.
A taste of the play's ambiance and vision can be found below, in its official trailer for 2015.
The Absence of War - 2015
The play is drawn from the remarkable, congested failure of the pre-Blair British Labour Party to win the general election of 1992: an event often considered as "old" Labour's last chance at electoral success before the rise of the neo-liberal faction within their party to prominence in the early 1990's.
The play set itself to examine such questions and challenges with a vivid candor - introducing the charismatic, successful Labour leader of George Jones in the face of a waning Conservative government, and the personal world of the party's executive ranks which would determine so much of the election to come. George Jones is himself a singular, rugged and compelling leader, though his leadership is the fount of considerable ambivalence between his measured modernization, his detractors within the party and the perceptions of a British public now resolved in a reactionary, right wing mentality after a decade of Thatcherism. His task indelible, the cluttered imperatives, congested principles and quiet convulsions of his political world converge to choke his ideals: the result a increasingly fractious slide towards defeat - mirroring the initial optimism and drive of the 1992 campaign before it dispersed under similar circumstances.
 Labour Leader Neil Kinnock, 1992, Labour Election Rally 
George Jones, Labour Leader - "An Absence of War", 2015
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The play's vision considered prescient in speaking to not simply a political culture of media control, spin and contrived, consumer friendly image, it remains a potent indictment of the issues which have plagued the institution of British Labour for decades: press for a principled, orthodox vision of their political mission as compared to a new, right wing consensus which abandons the essence of social democracy in favor of electoral success. This argument more complex than the ostensible and time honored tugging between right and left, time has afforded the play an almost prophetic quality in that such questions still nibble at a Labour Party now at home with right wing narratives and a market society, but also in a cold indictment of a wider social narrative. As the ill fated George remarks, in a moment of impassioned indignation, it has become the nature of his party to indulge and pamper the sensibilities of a country too settled in media narratives, jingoism, consumerism and the affectations of great power status - and not challenge them, if he wishes to be elected.
Bounced between the political culture of early 1990's Britain and the institution of Labour's historic mission, we find a somewhat embattled and tragic figure: genuine and compelling, though ultimately a victim of not only the culture he wishes to better, but also his party and his own sense of history - a matrix which seems to lead him and his followers to their ultimate defeat.
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| "The Absence of War" by David Hare - 2015 Tour |
Not overly well received when first debuted in 1993, the gripping intelligence and prescience of this dramatic work have since been proven fundamentally correct in their vision of a Britain comfortable in its conceit, a consumerist political culture of spin and the dissolution of a once vigorous, edifying movement into a business, not unlike their rivals. In the years since that first debut, the work's intellectual and ideological proposition have been found to have great traction in their subject - and especially in what Labour's ultimate mission is: that existential stinger which has so jabbed at the party for decades into the present day.
The essence of the play's power well proven, this rendition is a timely one: by no coincidence being toured in the weeks before a British election year of unique energy and issue as the Labour Party finds its mission again under scrutiny, and fragmenting in a world where it has less popular, obligatory traction than ever before.
In all, the play's powerful, potent indictments reflect something more singular: framed by the period of the early 1990's when the story was conceived, though given a more universal traction by the play's conclusion as a man - and his party - struggle to realize what their principles ultimately are, and how they could be worked in a world increasingly removed from their ideological provision: if this struggle is worth while or if some other form of recourse will be the movement's saving grace.
Justice, equality and prosperity remaining paramount to the vision of western democracy, it remains a cold, hard indictment of an age where growing extremes are met by increasingly vacuous, confined and ideologically deficient movements in modern politics - a state which the present Labour Party finds itself in, and which "The Absence of War" shines painful light upon, then and now.
Thank you,
Clark Caledon.
