Surfaces

I finished Hare's The Absence Of War last night and I'm moving onto The Blue Room, his adaptation of Schnitzler's La Ronde, which I remember causing a bit of a stir when Nicole Kidman played the lead in it in the West End. I suppose this was due simply to her celebrity and the fact that the play focuses on a series of sexual encounters - a dangerous combination in this, or any, day and age.

There's not a lot of obvious sex in the politics of the 1993 play, though tensions of that nature lurk in the background, at least in my reading. I guess just how heavily they do their lurking would depend on the nature of the performances of the female roles (there are several) and particularly how they relate to the central character of the Leader. The possibilities seem to be there in the script.

However, it seems to me that Hare is more concerned here with the nature of a public life and what it can do to a man. (Or woman?) In the immediate circumstances he seems to be saying that for someone leading a supposedly socialist party there is a necessity to compromise on principles in order to achieve power and such a compromise will render any such leader inauthentic, and thus incapable of providing the visionary leadership necessary to attain such power. So it all seems pretty hopeless. However, since the Labour Party did come to power in the decade in which the play was written, and has remained in power since, it might be argued that Hare got it wrong. I suppose he would point out that socialist principles have been utterly compromised by 'New Labour', so, in effect. he got it right.

But this level of argument doesn't do the play justice since I think its deeper truths concern the compromises that any public figure must necessarily make. What gives the text its power is the sense of the Leader being constantly on view, exposed to possible criticism from all quarters, and finding his personality eroded through this experience. I suppose it's that Jungian idea of the persona taking over from the authentic self.

Those who find themselves in positions of authority (but does anyone ever really 'find' themselves there without deeply wanting it, needing it?) and maintain a sense of being fully rounded personalities are extraordinary, exceptional individuals. I can't think of many, but then it would be very difficult to know such a thing which, by its nature, would tend to remain hidden. The only example I can think of off-hand in British politics is a Labour politician of some years back who named Samuel Beckett as a favourite writer. Any politician who can do that must have something authentically alive about them. I also remember a story about him toddling off to an art exhibition in the middle of a Labour Conference just before delivering a major speech on an on-going currency crisis (a fact that was not revealed at the time.) His explanation for doing so went along the lines that there was only going to be that one chance to see the work of someone he greatly admired and that was more important than a temporary political crisis largely built up by the press. Now that's a man I can admire.