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David Hare's new drama about the war in Iraq gives us plenty to think about but not enough to stir the emotions
At the end of the play, one of David Hare's characters comes downstage to stand in an imaginary Iraq. He asks why nobody has bothered to calculate figures for the Iraqi dead. Then he says: 'Until this country takes charge of itself, it will continue to suffer. If you don't do it yourself, this is what you get!'
In other words, 'stuff happens' to those who have lost control of their world. They get tortured, massacred, invaded, bombed or looted. But what happens to those who do control the world, who dish out that stuff? Are they as sovereign as their Texan swagger, French shrug or British snigger suggests? Or are they too in the grip of forces which decide what they will say or do? This is what makes history tough for dramatists.
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