Hanging @ The Tron

Roger Casement was 'on the right side of history'. As a revolutionary for Irish independence, and a homosexual who, in Peter Arnott's play, refuses to apologise for his orientation, he becomes more a victim of early twentieth century attitudes than the traitor he is called by the British state. The double 'crimes' he committed, a century later, would not be prosecuted today. The incriminating diary of his sexual activity, used by British Intelligence to discredit him, would probably be a best seller.

Arnott is too subtle a writer, however, to make a simple, ironic tragedy about a man out of time. Using a basic structure - two men are locked in verbal battle - his script teases out the complexity of political action, questions of honour and the thin line between idealism and violence.

Given Casement's rehabilitation after his death (he counts among the martyrs who died for an independent Ireland), his characterisation is strikingly ambiguous. His initial honesty and display of moral integrity - refusing to lie or implicate others who may yet be innocent - gives way to duplicity in the second half. Captain Hall, representing the British state, gives reasonable justifications for Casement's arrest, spending the first hour attempting to offer the prisoner escape routes from the gallows. Hall turns vicious after he realises that Casement was involved in the organisation of the Easter Sunday uprising, and reading his explicit diary. The blend of sexual paranoia and disappointment at Casement drives Hall to violence, finally assuming the mantle of colonial oppressor.

Arnott's script is less interested in the hallowed hero and imperial

stereotypes than the complexity of his protagonist's life. Casement's work in Africa (which he regards as a financial deal with the oppressive empire) made him a dashing Victorian hero, the inspiration for Conrad's Heart of Darkness and a dream-like interlude suggests that his experiences on the continent informed his attitude towards the British Empire. Benny Young captures an edgy, nervous energy, as Casement alternates between to desire to act the gentleman and protect his fellow activists. At one moment he is apologising for inconveniencing Hall: the next, he is describing his integrity in refusing to accept money from the German state. While his execution is tragic - and as a coda taen from George Bernard Shaw implies - unnecessary, Young's performance reveals a man ready to take responsibility, and pride, in his actions.

Stephen Clyde, as Hall and a few other characters - including a brutal Irish policeman - is a foil to Young's central role, but is given a presence and intelligence by the script. His initial concern and respect for Hall may disappear in a homophobic disgust, but his sadness at the brutality caused in response to Casement's conspiracy offers a picture of a colonial warden driven by duty rather than sadism. The power is clearly tilted towards him - he regards the Irish revolutionaries as 'children' and their defeat as a necessary punishment - yet he attempts to be just, and identifies the value of Empire within its belief in justice.

The possible relationship to Scotland's own independence is unspoken - and, despite the programme notes, tangential. It's clear that the stakes were higher for Ireland in 1916 (the activists ending up executed then). Although Casement is given dignity, and drawn as both a sexual and political revolutionary, the script is far too nuanced to leave a clear moral, but rather invites continued discussion on the morality of Casement's actions.

Hanging Dramaturgy: Peter Arnott @ The Tron

What was the inspiration for this performance?
I've been writing plays now for more than thirty years and I've been wanting to write a play about Casement for all that time. Ever since I first came across his story, the idea of the execution in 1916 of an Irish Nationalist Protestant Gay British Civil Servant Hero of the struggle for human rights in Africa well before such a thing had anything like a name...has had a certain appeal. 

This year being the centenary of that execution, and of the Easter

Rising, it became a time limited kind of a thing...particularly when I realised that no one else seemed to be doing it...which I find frankly astonishing. It's a key story for our times, I think, in more ways than can be comfortably fitted into 90 minutes...Just start with the idea of the break-up of Britain...throw in individual as well as national self-determination...plus the fight to expose European perfidy and hypocrisy in the Congo...and take it from there.

How did you become interested in writing for performance in the first place - does it hold any particular qualities that other media don't have?I acted before I wrote plays. Writing plays is still a second cousin of performing in them, only you get to play everyone in the privacy of your own home – though my wife tells me I have the distressing habit of going over dialogue while walking down the street to the alarm of innocent members of the public. I'm an actor with a pencil and without the guts to be an actor.

Was your process typical of the way that you write a script?
Yes and no, in that there is nothing ever entirely typical because of the specificity of the demands on the piece each time. A play text is not a play...the play is something that happens only in performance and only in the minds of the individual spectator (each of whom sees a slightly different play, naturally) so the job is to provoke the story telling in the audience rather than to tell the story. On the other hand, yes, it wasn't unusual in that I was responding to the fact that this was going to be a two hander at the Tron scheduled for May 2016...I mean in terms of craft...

What do you hope that the audience will experience?
The action of the play is basically an interrogation. So those who know about Casement will have one experience, and those who don't know about him will have another...Will he hang or not? Is a Socratic question, a political question, a moral question...and a very personal one? Even if you know what happened...

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?Now you're asking! The title comes from an article written by George Bernard Shaw in the Manchester Guardian in 1916. And the play is unfashionably Shavian...it's an argument about Britain, loyalty, Ireland, war, love...between two people who speak in whole sentences. It's historical on a couple of levels. But I think it unfolds nicely...and with actors of the calibre of Stevie Clyde (who does menace better than any other actor in Scotland, I think) and the intelligence and charm of Benny Young as Casement...I think the audience will find themselves in the room with these guys...which will hopefully be an interesting and slightly terrifying experience...

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?
I see myself as reinventing what I do every time I do it...I'm not sure I could stand it any other way.