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First night: Taut drama short-circuits debate: Privacy: Donmar Warehouse 3/5
[April 23, 2014]

First night: Taut drama short-circuits debate: Privacy: Donmar Warehouse 3/5


(Guardian (UK) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) James Graham's new play deals with the big issue of our day: the power of the surveillance state and the ability of the internet to determine our identities. Taking the form of a theatrical collage, the play also relies heavily on the verbatim testimony of seven members of the Guardian staff. But, although I found the result endlessly fascinating, the mass of information and the diversity of styles means the promised debate never really matures.



The chosen form ensures that the Writer and Director are central characters. At first the Writer, experiencing his own crisis of identity, goes to an analyst who talks of our culture's "pathological intrusiveness." This leads to a discussion about the difference between privacy and secrecy. This, in turn, opens up an exploration of the near-impossibility of privacy in the digital age.

To reinforce the point, the audience is asked to keep its smartphones switched on; and, in a highly interactive evening, we see how our tastes and preferences become not just exploitable assets but clues as to who we are. At one point we learn that "Facebook algorithms can predict whether people will split up." All this is suitably alarming. But the second, more substantial half relies heavily on verbatim testimony. We hear from journalists, politicians, lawyers, intelligence officers and defenders of civil liberties about the threat posed by ubiquitous surveillance. We also come to the story of Edward Snowden and hear about the implications of his whistleblowing. Bland reassurances from security chiefs that we don't have mass surveillance in this country do nothing to assuage our fears that all our personal data is instantly accessible.


Graham, who wrote excellently about the intricacies of parliament in This House, certainly has his finger on the pulse. He also offers a mass of information and ideas. But I hope I won't be accused of log-rolling if I say that much of the most instructive stuff comes from colleagues. Reminding us that the young no longer have an undocumented past, Janine Gibson's character argues that every generation needs to reopen the debate about security and civil liberty. And the evening's one truly moving moment comes when the figure of Ewen MacAskill, on interviewing Edward Snowden, thinks: "You've screwed up your life and for what?" It's a busy, rich, adrenalin-fuelled evening. It is also cleverly directed by Josie Rourke and well acted by Gunnar Cauthery, Paul Chahidi, Jonathan Coy, Joshua McGuire (the Writer), Nina Sosanya and Michelle Terry (the Director).

But, for all its urgent topicality, I felt the play short-circuited the crucial debate about how we guarantee a measure of privacy in the digital age. When it comes to the verbatim section, we get soundbites from politicians such as Malcolm Rifkind and Paddy Ashdown and an articulate libertarian such as Shami Chakrabarti. What I longed for was a real intellectual tussle between those who see our essential privacy as under threat and those - there are some - who argue that is the price we pay for security from external threat.

The play will, I'm sure, trigger fierce discussions among its audience. But I found myself craving more in the way of dialectical argument.

Until 31 May. Box Office: 0844 871 7624 Captions: The highly interactive evening explores the divide between privacy and secrecy Photograph: Johan Persson (c) 2014 Guardian Newspapers Limited.

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