The Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, North London, is to be congratulated for its excellent programmes of political plays. Over the last few weeks I have been to see several of the trilogy which is entitled 'The Great Game' and which deals with the history and politics of Afghanistan. I believe it is essential for audiences in the UK to understand what exactly are the history and geopolitics which affect this country - an area of Central Asia which is now where the UK, and the US, are fighting a major war. Not a day goes by without the announcement of further casualties and this is withoug mentioning the major loss of civilain life there also.
The war has now spilled over into Pakistan and the Americans are now deeply worried about the prospect of Pakistani nuclear weapons being seized in transit or taken by rogue army officers. Indeed this conflict will soon eclipse Iraq as the major battleground for the UK and NATO. It involves the Central Asian states, Iran, Russia and Pakistan and India.
'The Great Game' was a series of short plays by a range of writers and dealt chronologically with British, Soviet and US/UK involvement in the country. The first part of the trilogy dealt with the disastrous First and Second Afghan Wars involving the British and acted as a grim warning to all potential invaders in this harshest of lands. Part One ended with a reforming king, who had the support of Lenin's Soviet Russia, being driven from power by the conservative mullahs and tribes for his attempts to change this ancient land.
The Second Part dealt with the Soviet invasion and the communist governments, including an interview with the former Communist President, Najibullah, whom the Taliban castrated and hung from a lamppost in Kabul as a warning to all infidels. It ended with the coming to power of the Taliban and a play set in Kabul zoo, where a female head of a UN agency was shocked by the brutal justice of the Taliban, who fed two criminals to the lions, who had killed two of her UN workers. The Taliban minister stated: " Who are you to seek to impose your ideas of justice on us.?" This continuing refrain about the role of the outside world (whether Imperial Britain or Soviet Russia) in the affairs of Afghanistan echoed through all of the plays.
The Third Part brought us up to date with the overthrow of the Taliban and the continuing NATO war. One of the plays also dealt with the views of British squaddies there, unsure of why exactly they were there and of whether there should be negotiations with the Taliban. In some senses this was a full circle to the first play in Part One, where several redcoated British soldiers who had witnessed their entire army being massacred on the retreat from Kabul in the 1840s, gazed in blinking incomprehension on the merciless terrain and its, to their eyes, strange inhabitants.
This is the sort of theatre which is sorely needed in Britain - informative, moving and witty. The Tricycle should be congratulated. It is a pity that many of the peformances were sold out and many people could not see it. I sincerely hope that it will be produced again. Further details here.
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