A charming cast, except for the humans – Goats, Royal Court, review
This play about the war in Syria does indeed, as advertised, contain real live goats. Six altogether (mixed breed); each one a cutey and a beauty. Did ever Ellen Terry or David Garrick transfix the eye quite so much as this little herd, who combine a remarkable air of docility, quizzicality and child-like innocence? Bouquets – or perhaps that should be extra feed (though they get enough on the night) – for Amelia, Beauty, Belle, Eek, Squeak and Leigh. They don’t just upstage their human cohorts, they almost act them off the stage too.
No kidding: one concludes that this mesmerising quality is precisely the reason Syrian playwright and documentary film-maker Liwaa Yazji has made them such an integral component in her response to the conflict. The biddable and yet still unpredictable sextet, barely bleating even in the presence of people near-shouting into microphones and the simulated rumble of warfare, represent a quality of truth harnessed at the service of a lie.
The Syrian regime has given out goats to compensate families of dead soldiers “martyred” in defence of the motherland – hush mammals, you might say. Just as we’re distracted by livestock in the theatre, so the theatre of war, Yazji suggests, has been subject to state-managed obfuscation. The goats are at once literal and metaphorical.
Neat. If only the surrounding drama (with clunky translation by Katharine Halls) wasn’t such a dog’s dinner. It sounds glib to say this could be called Six Goats in Search of an Author but the serious subject-matter is diminished by an overlong running-time, underpowered scenes and disjointed dialogue. Hamish Pirie’s production has a laudably diverse cast, but nonetheless suffers from stilted performances.
What comes across forcefully at the start is the rage and grief of an ageing teacher (played with fitful success by Carlos Chahine) at the loss of his son, whose corpse he is denied the right to see. While other bereft relatives toe the line and conform to camera, as a concertedly upbeat TV crew mingles among the mourners at a mass funeral, he risks outraging the authorities with questions. Who is reducing the enlisted youth into heaps of mangled body-parts? Is it, as they’re told, “terrorists” – or in fact their own side? The response, as articulated by the unpleasant, controlling local chair of the governing party, is curt: “Has anyone ever told the truth? Has anyone ever demanded it?... Does anyone even need it?”
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At its best, the evening brings us closer to a situation that should never be far from our minds. We see the furtive, mealy-mouthed nature of a war-ravaged society where punishment awaits troublemakers, and the gloomy resignation among school-friends who can see the fighting dragging on long enough to draw them into service.
Our fascination is stirred by the familiarity, and foreignness, of what we’re shown: one traumatised soldier understandably berates his pregnant wife for parroting the regime’s exhortations to heroic self-sacrifice, but also unpalatably threatens her with conjugal violence. Food for thought at times, then, but overall not nearly enough to chew on.
Until Dec 30. Tickets: 020 7565 5000; royalcourttheatre.com