:: OP-ED

Who killed the world economy?

By Kishwar Desai

Oct 17 : Everything has been affected by the global recession hovering over us for the past one year. Austerity is the latest mantra, as is understanding economics: Are you on the side of John Maynard Keynes or, strangely enough, Ayn Rand, idolised by the discredited Alan Greenspan, head of the US Federal Reserve? So it was only a matter of time before the world of art and theatre also began to use the "R" word as inspiration. Whilst many books have been churned out about the crash (people writing knowledgeably of a phenomena very few had predicted) now at last, a play has been written about it, called rather positively The Power of Yes. Though, of course, the message is anything but positive. It is running to packed houses and favourable reviews at the National Theatre.  

Sir David Hare has been writing and producing plays since the 1970s. He has often written cutting-edge theatre — taking cue from the real world of social and political events. Since he usually has firm views about his subjects, the plays are usually controversial — such as Stuff Happens (2005) on the Iraq war. He named people and critiqued the government policy very successfully in the play.

This is a challenging way to write for a commercial platform: not only are you examining events which have impacted the current world, you are also portraying real people, and putting words in their mouth. It requires immense courage, and it is a measure of the maturity of the British politicians that they are stoic about their portrayal. And if there is any rancour, it is never expressed in public. Won’t be the right thing to do, old chap!  

So, for years Sir David Hare has been able to seriously examine issues without any roadblocks being put on his creativity. If there has been any censorship, no one is any the wiser — because the productions by themselves would give many decision-makers sleepless nights. This is a far cry from India, of course, where an international film on Jawaharlal Nehru’s romance with Edwina Mountbatten — hardly an issue for anyone to get agitated about more than 40 years after the event — is stuck because the government would like to re-draft the script. And, here in the UK, Sir David is pillorying the living Prime Minister every night at the National Theatre and, while Gordon Brown may gnash his teeth about it, he has not mumbled a single word against it. Neither has the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, and nor has the Labour Party taken to the streets and shouted slogans. Or burnt the theatre down. 

It shows a level of maturity that the politics in UK has achieved. It also shows a level of security and confidence in the British people that they can watch so-called inflammatory material and be allowed to make up their own minds, rather than a scared government worried about opening up any form of debate, in case the "legacy" of the political party is somehow depleted. It is only when this level of maturity arrives in the political system in India, that Indian art, theatre and literature will be really free to evolve.  

Sir David’s play is extremely well researched. The format is fairly simple and, in a sense, not terribly theatrical because he uses a number of "talking heads", like actors walking on to deliver their dialogues without much action at all. He uses his own character — of a puzzled playwright trying to find out why the financial crisis occurred — as the pivot. And in reality, too, that is how the play was written. He had been asked to make a play about the "credit crunch" by the director of the National Theatre and so he ended up working like a forensic scientist. He not only gathered the body of evidence and the fingerprints left by fat cat bankers and even Nobel Prize winning economists, such as Myron Scholes, but also tried to prove who killed the world economy.

Surprisingly, even though just this week was the anniversary of the big bank bailout in the UK — we have been inundated with information about the "recession", the depression and (every now and then) the mirage-like recovery — most of us have not really sat and figured it all through. Therefore, I have to say, the National Theatre had an enthralled audience watching, literally with shock and awe, how the government and bankers colluded to create first the boom, and then the bust.

The real success of the play is that we too learn about the banking crises as it unfolds — and the effect is a little bit like understanding how to make a bomb. Once you know the ingredients you feel like a fool, because you never knew it was so simple! The play should have been called The Idiots’ Guide to Making Markets Collapse. But it really scares you because for the first time you realise that most bankers are really not terribly smart and they have all our money! And the second shock is to understand that the so-called "bail out" of the banks, which is supposed to stabilise the world economies, is actually going to leave enormous debts that future generations are going to struggle under. In all it is probably the most clever, most relevant and most frightening play I have seen in a long time.

As is his wont, Sir David uses real people and real names: therefore, George Soros, billionaire and philanthropist, appears in a guru-like avatar as he grumbles about losing a few million here and there, but overall points out the bleak future under the brightly painted rainbow. Others who do not come across so beatifically, alas, is a friend Sir Howard Davies, currently the director of the London School of Economics and formerly the head of the Financial Services Authority. Some others, such as the very Left-leaning Labour politician Jon Cruddas, were very pleased by their own portrayal as normally bank benchers in New Labours regime do not get such prominence.  

However, overall, the power of the play lies in its honesty and its ability to question statements such as Mr Brown’s famous line of abolishing boom and bust. This is an open society where debate is encouraged and Sir David’s lucid portrayal of even a subject like economics makes it a discussion where we, the British aam aadmi and aurat, can vociferously participate in. Another equally well-received play running right now is Enron. Hmmm… now that should interest Indian politicians, shouldn’t it?

The writer can be contacted at kishwardesai@yahoo.com