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The Iraq war has energised dramatists, with David Hare's new play the latest in a surge of political theatre. Pinter, Frayn and others on the front line talk to Kate Kellaway
The National Theatre is not saying anything about David Hare's new play, Stuff Happens, which opens tomorrow. Nicholas Hytner - who is to direct - is only ever as quiet as this when he knows he is onto a play that needs no fanfare, that will do all the talking itself. Its subject is the two years running up to the declaration of the Iraq war. Its title is lifted from Donald Rumsfeld's incredible shrug of a response to the looting of Baghdad: 'Stuff happens... and it's untidy, and freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.' Alex Jennings plays George W Bush, Desmond Barrit is US Vice President Dick Cheney, Nicholas Farrell, Tony Blair.
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