Enduring Freedom at the Finborough Theatre is reviewed by Ryan Shorthouse

The artistic director of the Finborough Theatre- Neil McPherson - likes his politics. Earlier this year, he commissioned Little Madam, a play exploring the life of Margaret Thatcher. Now he turns to the immediate aftermath of 9/11: Enduring Freedom explores the sorrow and anger of New Yorkers who lost relatives during the attack on the Twin Towers.

The first half of the play shows the political highjacking of 9/11, politicians and the media using the victims to justify their views and policies. Fireman Tom has lost his son and has come to believe September 11th was a Republican conspiracy to justify Hawkish foreign policy. He represents an extreme liberal minority fighting an increasingly powerful ultra-Conservative faction that is fervently pro-war, racist even. His obsession with finding the truth about Bush and Co leads him to air his outrage during his son’s ceremony and in a radio interview, causing friction with his friends and eventually the end of his relationship with his wife Susan.

After the dust settled in Manhattan, Liberals and Conservatives turned against each other. This play illustrates that, because of internal political warfare, many Americans forgot to grieve, to breathe. Politics stole people’s ability to live with the anguish of the terror that had been inflicted upon them. Amidst the racism, belligerency and conspiracies were families struggling to cope with loss.

Writer Andres Lustgarten delivers a powerful message: 9/11 should have been about people, not politics. The juxtaposition of the first and second act reinforces this. Act one ends with a speech by a senator, the cast sitting on each side of the stage to symbolise the polarised political landscape. But the second act scraps the big speeches and the hefty blocks on set, leaving an empty, personal space for intimate moments and emotive lines, aided by gripping performances and powerful writing. Tom’s time away from the Big Apple is cathartic, for he finally realises what his frustration is all about: not the Government, but the unfair, premature death of his son.

However, political bias does creep in to the play as it confirms to left-liberal stereotyping of Republican Americans. Dimmed lighting and dated furniture in the inside of a Republican voting couple’s home, with a cross in the middle of their dining room table, duly makes the family seem backward. It also jarred with the modern music that accompanied scene changes. Those characters that were not pro-war are much more thoughtful and emotional, and hence receive more sympathy from the audience. Those espousing pro-Bush sentiment are cartoonishly depicted, only to be laughed at. This served to excite instinctive anti-Republican sentiment, commonplace in Europe, and ultimately weakened the writer’s powerful narrative about politics overshadowing the pain of people during atrocities.

Conservatives have for years been criticised in political drama. Unfortunately, the play simply seems to stick to this. Nevertheless, I do recommend a visit to the Finborough, for this small fringe theatre at the heart of Earl’s Court is gaining a reputation for putting on plays that explore events and people which have a profound importance for those on the centre-right.