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The Australian
Samela Harris

AN AMERICAN director has been giving touches of authenticity to Holden Street Theatre's Fringe production of the confronting American political play What I Heard About Iraq.
Paul Lucas, who has directed the critically-acclaimed play overseas, came to Adelaide - not to direct the play, but to direct the director, Holden Street Theatre's Martha Lott.
"You might say this play is singing to the choir but the anti-Iraq, anti-Bush choir keeps growing," he says.
"But there are lots of facts and figures people don't know." New York-based Lucas also is an agent, manager and producer. He was at the Sydney Festival with his ukulele-playing drag queen Taylor Mac - a very far cry from his Adelaide mission to advise on an agit-prop theatre piece.
He calls it "social theatre".
What I Heard About Iraq is a work adapted by Simon Levy from an article by Eliot Weinberger in the London Review of Books .
It is presented by five actors reporting from diverse perspectives, reiterating "I heard" as they deliver the facts and figures, views, biases, counter-information from politicians, soldiers and civilians. These are direct quotes.
In Adelaide, Lucas says he has been giving Martha Lott tips on what has and hasn't worked in other productions and just how to achieve the "delicate balance" by which the actors narrating and quoting, particularly leading politicians, can avoid impersonations or caricatures but "honour their words without hitting people over the head with them".
What I Heard About Iraq previews from March 3-7 and runs from March 8-31 at Holden Street Theatres. Bookings at FringeTix.

Review
Steve Jones

The most disturbing thing about 'What I Heard About Iraq' is that the actual dialogue is not fiction, but each line delivered uses public statements made mostly through the press by many world leaders, key military figures, serving soldiers and everyday Iraqi civilians; all simply prefaced here by, "I've heard..."

Five straight faced actors take their place alongside televisions, which together with a large screen above display disturbing images of the current war and archive footage of speeches from those who led us there. Below, the floor is a giant collage of newspaper clippings that tell of the ongoing travesty. One by one the incredibly strong cast repeat verbatim, and often in character voices the words ignorantly spun by Bush, Rice, Howard, Blair, Powell and Rumsfeld among others.

Starting from 9/11, the production moves in loosely chronological order to highlight how dishonestly the war was waged, and of how much deeper the whole deception has become over time by taking in the continual escalating costs; both economically and in casualties.

It's the local civilian voices and eyewitness accounts that resonate the greatest, for us much as we can all nervously laugh at the incompetence of those in power, it's the reality of those suffering in the name of lies, greed and blatant rhetoric that becomes the clear message long after today's propaganda soaked mainstream reports are forgotten. Extremely sobering, and not to be missed.

Steve Jones

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