09.02.2006
Occupation and oppression
Carey Davies reviews Romans in Britain, which has again been subject to religious criticism. Crucible Theatre, Sheffield (ends Saturday February 25)
In response to the original production of Romans in Britain in 1980, Mary Whitehouse launched legal proceedings against Sir Peter Hall, artistic director of the National Theatre, and Michael Bogdanov, the show's director, who were taken to court for allegedly having breached the Sexual Offences Act 1956 - a law which was originally designed, in Mark Lawson's words, to "prevent hand-jobs in lavatories" (www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,,1602604,00.html).
The offending sequence was one in which Marban, a Celtic druid, is raped on stage by a Roman soldier. For Whitehouse, there was no difference between lewd acts committed in public and ones performed as part of a theatrical event. Bogdanov faced up to three years in prison. Eventually, the charges were dropped, largely because the prosecution's only witness was demolished under cross-examination.
Its relaunch by Sheffield Theatres is the first since its original run. Samuel West directs - a surprising development, given his establishment credentials; you may recognise West from Van Helsing, Notting Hill, or as Anthony Blunt in The Cambridge spies. Author Howard Brenton was responsible for The Churchill play in 1974, part of a critique of Britain's World War II myth that led to him being branded a Marxist by some critics.
Brenton rejects this term, but is nevertheless renowned as a 'political playwright'. Sadly, the fame Romans in Britain attracted was not because of its political message, which linked the situation in Ireland (Brenton was amazed and disturbed by the ease with which British politicians and the electorate accepted the presence of troops in the Six Counties) to a profound exploration of the consequences of colonialism and invasion, as Brenton draws parallels between the British occupation of Ireland and the Roman and Saxon occupations of Britain.
Sexual victimisation by the Romans turns Marban into a frothing, hate-filled object of pity. Elsewhere, two christian daughters kill their father after he attempts to perform a pagan ritual to repel the Saxon invasion; a man, his companions having deserted with the Saxon army looming, kills and robs his mistress; said mistress, once a wealthy beneficiary of imperial rule, has well and truly fallen from grace - we see her in a soiled dress "with ruddy bowels and a dangerous disease".
When oppressed, the victim becomes wretched, stripped of dignity and - in the case of these characters - frequently nefarious. Hence the rape we witness is an analogy for the entire phenomenon of colonialism: excruciating, full of barbarity, and utterly dehumanising. Amidst the privations of such conflict, Brenton's characters become beggars, outlaws and murderers: "The war travels in the air - we're breathing it. It makes a daughter kill her father and rob him just like that."
A great deal of the play focuses on the thoughts, actions and feelings of the invaded, as their lives are upturned, often simply by the threat of invasion. For the agrarian Celts, the concern throughout is for the safety of their land, which is placed above all other considerations. Romans is based on terra firma; the value - both symbolic and economic - of soil, terrain and the harvest.
In one of the earlier scenes, a Celtic matriarch refuses to send her sons to fight the Romans because it would risk jeopardising the health of their crops. Centuries later, a semi-senile grandfather will not budge from his land, despite pleas from his daughters: "I will not desert the fields. If we leave the lands and desert the fields, what are we? Nothing." For this old pagan, the soil is a supernatural force to which he is inextricably bound.
Caesar is well aware that the Celts will remain implacable unless their ties to the land are severed: "Take their animals, kill their pigs, salt their fields, do what you can in the time," he flippantly instructs an aide. As part of the process of being subjected, the Celts are thoroughly emasculated by the Romans - their conquest is about more than simple military encounters. "There are new gods now, do you understand? The old gods are dead," bellows Caesar to his captured druid, before forcing him to wear a symbol of the Roman god Jupiter around his neck, causing him immense distress. "They'll take away death as you know it."
Religion in Romans is a tool of oppression, a feature of identity and a mark of conquest. It provides hope for the people at the sharp end of Roman and Saxon swords; the religious gestures they make to try and hold back the invaders are striking in their futility, but they are a source of hope in desperate times. Hence religion becomes politicised, as it can denote allegiance to either resistance or occupation. The resonance with modern-day Ireland is clear to see.
Brenton explores this parallel conflict through the character of major Chichester, a British army officer on a special undercover assignment in Ulster. We are introduced to him in the second act, after a powerful 'cut' at the end of the first act which takes us from England, 54BC to Ireland, 1980AD (I will not ruin this for readers by describing it; suffice to say it is a breathtaking moment).
Chichester, losing his mind, is gripped by a profound guilt, as his scenes are spliced with moments from the Saxon invasion in the 6th century. Bodies fall about the stage, and when we return to the major he can see them slumped in the grass. Why are they there? What is to be learnt from their deaths?
Chichester comes to understand the war between the Saxons and Celts as comparable to the Anglo-Irish conflict, and the myth of King Arthur begins to haunt him. As he observes to a British corporal, "King Arthur was a Celt. If King Arthur was to walk out of those trees, do you know what he'd look like? Another fucking Mick!"
Clearly the ethnicity of the two sides is not the motivating force behind either conflict. But it shows how Chichester's imagination causes his will to unravel. It also makes these key moments in the history of imperialism resonate further.
In the end, the guilt of the British major is the source of his downfall. Realising that the republican cause is just, Chichester begins to question the assumptions he once held about the rationale for his mission, eventually concluding that the British are the latest in a long line of conquerors to have rampaged across these islands: "I am the great wrong in Ireland!" he cries.
This bitter conclusion is enforced by what we see in the other periods. Roman, Saxon and British soldiers share a bigotry that serves to justify their maltreatment of the local populations: "Why isn't any-thing straight in this fucking country?" asks a British grunt, reflecting the language used by the Roman soldiers to refer to the Celts - "nig-nogs", "niggers", etc. Caesar is driven by a superiority complex: "What a filthy fucking island. What a wretched bunch of wogs."
Caesar's character and the play itself vividly shows how the hallmarks of 'civilisation' - writing, language and the arts - are put to work by empires to justify and obscure acts of oppression, subjection and cruelty. Latin, for example, is unrecognisable as a 'civilised' language in this play. After being raped, the male druid shouts some Latin phrases, probably more in confusion than in an attempt to communicate. Furious, a Roman soldier forces himself on the man for a second time, exclaiming, "A nig-nog that speaks Latin!"
"All the tools of civilisation and they keep their people in ignorance," remarks the aide of Julius Caesar, who treats us to some textbook rhetoric before proclaiming boastfully of a campaign of massacres he was responsible for: "Every community, 20,000, I crucified them all. Men, women and children." Brenton turns the 'traditional' narrative of western history on its head, showing how it is transmitted to us by the victors, who stake their claim to be 'civilised' through conquest - a view of 'progress' which has yet to be completely expunged from historiography and history teaching.
The technical aspects of Romans are all excellent throughout, and the acting is top-notch. There is a great deal of humour in this play as well, which combines with the general pace and atmosphere to create a very surreal effect at times. There are, of course, parts which will shock many people, but anyone familiar with the purpose of these sequences will hopefully not be scandalised.
Unfortunately (?), my view of the rape scene was partially obscured by the head of the person occupying the seat in front of me (cheap tickets), although I heard someone in the lobby during the interval say - rather optimistically, I thought - that it was tastefully done. However, this play is certainly not for the squeamish.
In all, it is a highly recommended production, and well worth a long trek if you live a distance away from Sheffield.