If You Don't Care, You'll Die...The Fight Lives On

By Jonathan Jones

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

As Chicken Soup with Barley began unfolding tonight at the Royal Court Theatre, I was dazed and confused by the subject matter and its relevance today. Point 1: as an American and given our history of shunning all things Communist and Socialist, I was historically out of my depth (teaching Animal Farm for three years offered some limited support, but this was for more site specific to the London experience circa 1935 - 1955). Point 2: Beyond the historical that was beyond my comprehension, I didn't understand what relevance the work had today given that it was so specific to the time and place within which it was created.

Fortunately, the performances of Samantha Spiro (Sarah) and Danny Webb (Harry) were so layered and moving, there was plenty to occupy the mind and maintain my curiosity as to what they were on about. During Act Two, when the daughter Ada railed on about the filings of the Communist and Socialist movements in the UK, it began to come to a point of clarity. She says, "How can we care for a world outside ourselves when when the world inside is in disorder?" Ah yes, now we were getting somewhere. As the disorder within each of the characters grew to their respective tipping points, the family drama really began taking shape, but it was not until Sarah's final scene of the play when it really became evident that this was a work revived to both criticize the current austere conservatism as well as remind those of use with Socialist ideals just what it is that was so worth fighting for in the last century and why we mustn't allow our complacency at present to get the best of us. Sarah rails on her son Ronny, but it is the audience that Arnold Wesker so cleverly wishes to address, "When you were a baby and there was unemployment and everybody was thinking so--all the world was a communist. But it's different now. No the people have forgotten. I sometimes think they're not worth fighting for because they forget so easily. You give them a few shillings in the bank and they can buy a television so they think it's all over, there's nothing more to be got, they don't have to think anymore! Is that what you want? A world where people don't think anymore?" Well said, comrade. Well said.