The Hostage
By Brendan Behan
NIDA Final Year Students' Production
Parade Theatre, Sydney
Review by Brendan Doyle
Written in 1958, this is the play in which Pat, ex-hero of the Republican cause and now Dublin brothel-keeper, says: "The IRA and the War of Independence are as dead as the Charleston". Forty years later, in spite of The Hostage, the struggle is still as intense as when Brendan Behan shot at a policeman as a 19-year-old Irish revolutionary.
The Hostage, in this most enjoyable production by NIDA students, directed by John O'Hare, is a rollicking, bawdy comedy, full of brawling energy, song and satire, that does justice to Behan's play in which he treated Anglo-Irish relations with anarchic impartiality, putting politics in the midst of life. The subject matter, however, is deadly serious, and concerns the sacrifice of young people to war and ideology.
The play is set in a Dublin brothel, where manager Pat and his consort Meg enjoy a life of drunken idleness not unlike the one Behan himself preferred.
As the lights come up, various pimps, prostitutes, clients and assorted hangers-on, including Rio Rita, a randy spiv, and Princess Grace, his African boyfriend, are dancing a wild Irish jig.
This atmosphere is suddenly clouded by the news that a young IRA man is to be hung in a Belfast prison the next morning, and the IRA in retaliation have captured a young British soldier who will be kept as a hostage in the brothel.
Bagpipes are heard as Monsewer, amateur piper and owner of the house, emerges in grotty kilt to reminisce with Pat about the troubles. An Oxford graduate, he likes to speak Irish, which none of the Dubliners understand.
He urges Pat to tell him yet again about his youthful IRA activities. In one of the many quips in the play which made Behan himself laugh uproariously at performances, Pat says: "I was court-martialled in my absence, sentenced to death in my absence. So I said, right, you can shoot me — in my absence."
At the end of act one, Leslie, a young British soldier, is brought in blindfolded. In the next act, he and Teresa, sent to look after the prisoner, talk and discover they are both orphans and both care little for the war going on between Ireland and Britain. He is just a pawn in the struggle, and he knows it.
After a brief, steamy courtship they fall in love. But things get serious as the dawn execution of the IRA boy in Belfast draws near, and the couple swear eternal love.
But someone has informed on Pat and brought in the Civil Guard to rescue the British hostage. The police storm the brothel, there is a moment of chaos, darkness and gunshots, and when the smoke clears, the body of Leslie is lying there, accidentally killed by the police. And the boy in the Belfast jail has just been hanged.
In a moving final moment, Teresa simply says that Leslie, a boy without a home, died in a country not his own.
Although the play is about the futility of war and the waste of young lives, this production underlines the sense of immense vitality, humour and joie de vivre, that Behan possessed in abundance, although he felt deeply for the suffering he regarded as caused by politicians and ruthless extremists on both sides.
It's hard to fault the team effort that produced this memorable performance. Set, lighting, music and costumes all come up to the same high standard as the acting and direction. With a cast of 15, this is a play that is not likely to be seen on the commercial stage.