DAVID EDGAR is well known as the left-wing the far left who, for example wrote street theatre for Socialist Unity.
His new play, 'May Days', however makes a critical assessment of the far left.
Here TARIQ ALI reviews the play.
This article first appeared in Time Out.
DAYS is survey of political life in Britain, Europe and America. It spans the period between is centred around Nicklebyish hero, Martin Glass, move involvement as a Midlands public schoolboy of the early through a period of intense ultraleftist commitment position as lackey establishment = deciding at the play's close whether or not to evict some demonstrators (including an old more resilient from his property.
The play's scope is massive: the intellectual debates between far-left groups, the violence of the American draft protestors the British Angry Brigade, fate of Russian and Hungarian refugees, increasing awareness of women during the period covered by the action.
But is the play part of the Great Moving Right Show, which reached a scutilicalal at party Conference in Brighton? Or are we merely witnessing the impartiality of the bystander?
Edgar 1S вину aware problem. He ripostes: call Shakespeare a child-molester just because he wrote "Richard III"? In other words, he rejects any attempt at identifying him with the renegades who are the central characters in the play. Yet one's doubts are not fully assuaged.
May Days is an extremely intense theatrical essay on politics. Trevor Griffiths and David Mercer have written on themes in the past. and 7:84 continue to do so today, but shun the glitter of the big theatres and play before more popular audiences in small Scottish towns and working-class clubs in Wales and England.
Edgar's canvas is broader, his aim more ambitious. He is writing about defeated revoltOus. hopes, battered illusions demoralised cadres. It is a selective biography of Edgar's own generation.
Days concentrates on the aftermath of 1968, phenomenon is a universal should not be restricted in historical time. Despair has claimed many activists in the wake of defeated revolutionary upsurges. Passivity, tions and even suicides have been the unhappy consequences. just to look back at the 1930s and study Germany, Italy and Spain after reasons.
Germany. The defections in Weakness cherite quake. twas mammoth that the present La stable as it appears.
Despite all this, devastating ' 60s demoralisation.
final the anti-nuke the the the Labour Photo:
detached the •Would you dissident become an turns on his audience prepared script by revolutionary. present-day quiet dignity, adjacent John McGrath dramatic effect is considerable.
over a decade ago.
dissidents.
destroyed Trotskyist groups the one and ages are accurate retlections. Who defec- intimidating people?
If one were The macho rhetoric, the victory of fascism, one would see hundreds of thousands of defections: a collective renegacy and for different Many of those who participated in the forward march of Hitler's legions had at one time been supporters of the far Communist and Socialist Parties in Thatafter 1979 minuscule in comparison. One could go. lurtner back into mistory waen tnt the revolutionary wave of 1848 assumed the dimensions of a continental earthrepressed eventually, with the inevitable political casualties.
The simple point I am stressing is period in Western Europe is not as startling as the 1930s.
LYUC Nor is the ascendancy of the Right as David Edgar is quite right to try and understand the serious processes The most powerful characters are the dissidents from the East. One of the most powerful images in the play Parties.
theory.
fessor is that of the newly arrived Soviet Lermontov Iclusilig instrument of, the cold war. At a dinner in nis nonour ne - a glittering galaxy of academics, journalists and royalty — and discards the carefully an experienced BBC hand, formerly a Hungarian that 'Yours are not gaolers' faces,' Lermontov informs them with 'but perhaps the faces of people who hire the gaolers.' The It is when the targets are clearly identifiable that Edgar is at his confident best and one is reminded of the way he dissected the Right in Destiny, The play is, however, not just about defectors and There is a concurrent theme. The economic recession has not led to a boom in socialist ideas. Capitalism is but so is the Marxist left.
Edgar's depiction of the post-1968 is not merit. I'm sure he will be denounced by them for this, but most of his imcan deny that the gauntlet of competing newspaper-sellers as enters a left-wing meeting can be an experience for ulally tne same style of public speaking, the commandist internal regime is, alas, only too Lie usu real in most cases. The history of the Marxist left is littered with the corpses tinpot Lenins playing at Bolsheviks.
Despite all this, Edgar's vision remains savagely one-sided. There is, as as the largest groups are con cerned, another angle. Their members dedicated, self-sacrificing tivists. It is not easy, especially now, to devote the bulk of your life to a struggle against the system on every level. It is true that membership of the can impart a certain siege mentality, but it also helps to insulate person concerned relentless atomising pressures capitalist society James the leader of the Socialist Vanguard in Edgar's play, is shown as a hard-faced practitioner of dogma and factionalism. I know the He/she exists. It is worth remembering nonetheless that fac tionalism is not confined to the Left. It is a virus that exists in a more strain boardrooms, academia, trade unions, Fleet Street, the Tory Party, the Labour NEC, and, yes, even the women's movement. Nor is it something restricted to the last few centuries.
Wherever men and women with strong personalities gather to engage in collective work of any sort, they impose their will, albeit unconsciously at times, on their colleagues. Infighting is universal and inevitable.
There 1S another imbalance. Edgar's concentration on the far left has led to some absences. The major defections have, over the years, atfected the Labour and Communist They have suffered much more than the tiny Trotskyist groups. Yet this is not in the play. Nor is is without relevance. For defections are taking place in the field of socialist Veteran CP theologians now tell us of the importance of the middle classes and their vital role in helping to preserve modern civilisation.
Eric Hobsbawn is Neil Kinnock's favourite Marxist.
Marxism Today is promoting a merger of the Labour Democratic Parties, without having the honesty to declare that the Communist Party should disband as well. Half could join Labour, the others the SDP and fight for a fusion within.
All this called "thoughtful'. This process is nowhere to be found in May Days. Possibly the dramatic reasons for the omission are sound ones. Politically though, it unbalances the production.
In a recent article in Marxism Today, Edgar has written that the role of socialist playwrights as cheerleaders is now defunct. I agree. I never thought it should have been that in the first place. In any case, Edgar was hardly in his former persona Destiny was a serious attempt In the West, of course, it is the defections from Left to Right that are toy always celebrated.
break with the system there is isolation and abuse. In the '60s, Russell, this distinguished regularly attacked for challenging the government's American policies on Vietnam.
Here was a case of a movement to the Left, villified by the media. The of Photo: GM COOKSON Pro- Tariq Ali other celebrated example is that of Social Tony Benn. Who can doubt that if he had played the game, he might wel have been elected from Right to Left and has paid the price. being to David Edgar's first major play for Financial For those who reason.
Benn. , Bertrand country's • most philosopher, on a writer's was servile Fleet Street "reassessment' tanks'.
determined ty.
children turns up, Common Leader of the party? He too had moved many thanks Marxism Today is often quoted by details. leader-writers in the Guardiar adie Times as the The same men have sist Their second cousins 3= Sun and Mail have often callec = = "loony'. Far be it from me to intrade dramatic irons mighi have, it includ privileges, ed, given a sharper cutting edge to May Days. It would also have con tested the reigning orthodoxies of What worries me is that Edgar's however well-intentioned, will tie in neatly with the pre-occupations of Kinnock's 'think Think tanks? No! Rather stagnant pools with a fetid smell, to drown dissent debate in the name of a spurious uniFor all my moans, May Days is a play about our times. It captures well the political directionlessness of the the sector anger ate an e 1968. The feminist, is not one of the strengths of the play A good person, she carries on with he priorities. She organises crêches and inevitably, at Greenham with 15-year old daughter (born in 1968).
History has moved on. The period that began in May 1968 in France and ended in November 1975 in Portuga is over. The multitentacled grip of Reaction can be observed most clearly in Britain and the USA. The masses appear to be silent. Order seems to have been restored. Pessimism and conservatism go hand in hand Amanda declares her faith in the rationality of the species. It will carry on resisting till injustices are removed. It is a low-profile approach com. pared to the heady rhetoric of the '60s. At least she hasn't caved in completely: For this small mercy, David, 'May Days' is in repertory a the Barbican theatre. See ad on this page for
----- pull-quotes -----
author of plays like Destiny, a sympathiser of
girlfriend) DONALD COOPER (Time Out)
'The history of the Marxist left is littered with the corpses of tinpot Lenins playing at toy Bolsheviks'
It is not easy, especially now, to devote the bulk of your life to a struggle against the system'
'The last 150 years have been studded with 'May Days' that didn't quite make it through to June
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