Breaking rank

“The best art makes us see the world anew. When theatre deals with hidden stories, it can shift our judgments and our understanding – and affect the decisions we make.”

Stirring words. True words, too. They belong to theatre director John E McGrath, whose National Theatre Wales-produced play, The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning, is currently thudding into the solar plexuses of enthralled audiences at this year’s Fringe. He could, however, be referring to a river of work coursing through the 2013 programme that seeks to prompt, poke and provoke; to elicit a response beyond mere sensorial titillation.

Amnesty International’s Freedom of Expression Award seeks to highlight the best of such endeavours, amplifying the voices of those unheard and championing the right of a human being—any human being—to speak out. To speak the unsullied truth, without consequence.

Neither of these things, you suspect, have been the recent privilege of Bradley Manning. Manning’s story, for those that don’t know it, is extraordinary. And the most perplexing question surrounding him provides the business of this play: just how did an American teenager schooled in West Wales become a global headline-grabber facing 90 years of jail-time for passing tens of thousands of classified military files to WikiLeaks?

“I was aware of Bradley Manning’s story as part of the overall WikiLeaks affair,” recalls McGrath, “but he was really brought to my attention by Tim [Price – the playwright], who told me the story of Bradley’s school days in Wales. Clearly Tim was passionate about the issue and the more I looked into it, the more I felt it was a story we needed to tell. Over time, I’ve become much more personally caught up in Bradley’s case: the idea that this young man—at worst misguided, at best truly idealistic—is having the weight of the American state thrown at him is horrendous.”

In fact, the American state isn’t the only institution to flex its muscles during this 90-minute, scattershot history of Manning’s life. From school to Starbucks—and of course, the US military—irresistible, non-elected powers crowd in on Manning throughout. At times, horrifically so.

“Yes, if there’s one thing that the play most clearly comes out against it’s the way in which large institutions allow for bullying and cynicism. I think the message of Bradley, WikiLeaks and the whole web 2.0 generation, politically, is that we desperately need new kinds of institutions, and a new way to hold institutions to account.

“Some people find the show quite brutal to watch, others find it almost joyful – partly because they are happy the story is being told, but also because there is an intense experience of release as Bradley leaks the files – something even jail can’t take from him, or us.

“We try not to say whether Bradley is right or wrong in his decision—that’s a judgment for each member of the audience to make—but we do try to understand why he did what he did.

“I’d say it’s challenging but also exhilarating.”

It certainly is. During the play’s incendiary opening, opinions voiced through a PA cascade over one another. He’s a confused homosexual, a former coffee waiter, a whistleblower, a hero, a criminal, a terrorist. Weaving together these strands, jump cut-style, McGrath slowly unpacks Manning the man. Theatrically, at times, it’s breathtaking.

“Essentially there are three stories told in the play: an imagined version of Bradley’s life as a teenager in West Wales, the more factual—but dramatised—events leading up to and immediately after his deployment to Iraq as an intel specialist; and finally, a portrayal of his brutal treatment in the brig [a Marine Corps military prison] after he was arrested.

“Tim collages scenes—real and imagined—to find the shape, rhythms and philosophy of the whole. The piece weaves together in a complex, provocative way, rather than just showing a string of events. The actors are jumping from school uniforms to desert fatigues in moments.”

Indeed, the six-strong cast play Manning (and several other characters) as an ensemble, often changing costume onstage and flipping props (a school table becomes an inhumanely small cell at one point) in a heartbeat. The pace is relentless and the production swells with ideas. Each performance is also streamed online—this is a story for the internet age, after all—with added info nuggets and a chatroom supplied to augment the experience. It really does, too.

“Yes, it’s been exciting to continue our experiment with live streaming,” agrees McGrath, “While we’ve been in Edinburgh, thousands of people in 59 countries have also been watching online. It’s been great to see international audiences respond to the Welsh part of the story as well as the more familiar American and Iraqi scenes.”

And McGrath’s personal response to his brush with Manning?

“I follow the story constantly now. Twitter makes this much easier – and there are brilliant journalists like Alexa O’Brien and Kevin Gosztola who have been tireless in reporting from the court and providing context. As we reworked the play for Edinburgh we kept checking everything against the evidence emerging. Tim’s play is a dramatisation but we wanted to make sure we were true to the spirit. The production ends with information about the exact point the case is at on the day of performance.

“Yes, Bradley’s story has changed me for sure; as for those who see the production – I hope that they will remember that history is made by small, confused people; and that gives us all a kind of hope.”