The Power of Yes
advertisment
Related Content
- Power Failure (03/12/2003)
- Power This, Monkey (03/08/2007)
- Mega Mobile Power (19/02/2008)
- iPhone: I Am Rich and Power Nap (25/08/2008)
There is a ripple of excitement every time a new play by David Hare is out. It's the yearning for the wise man of the left to yet again show up the devils of this world for what they really are.
So it was with great interest that I went to see his play, The Power of Yes, at the National Theatre. How would Hare make sense of the recent calamitous events in this country, and how would he present the economic disaster that we live with now?
I liked the title and the premise: a dramatist seeks to understand the financial crisis. The power of yes, the awkwardness alerting us to the difficulty of this play. How do you make a play out of something that has destroyed peoples lives? But isn’t that what great drama is all about? The Greeks knew this and their choirs alerted the theatre audience to be watchful of the action as their lives were being discussed. Greek tragedy talked about human existence, and tried to answer important questions about life and death.
And in this play we are also taught - about the financial contexts, the ridiculous role of sub-prime lending, and securitized lending arrangements. We hear about Lehman, the deregulation of the Bank of England, and trillions that seem to hang around the Lyttelton like stale air. Even more ludicrous seems the belief system that underpinned all these 'clever' inventions: bankers' acceptance of the Schulz-Black formula for calculating risk as failsafe, and the assumption that the markets self-regulate in their wisdom. These bright people seem to have been caught in a closed system - and really they should have known that closed systems lead to self-delusion, especially if supported by salaries in the heights we have never seen (and hopefully will never see again). When a greedy City is matched by a greedy Government finding 27% of their tax revenue there, whatever regulation we might have will be a sham.
So we learn that it is the not just the American Government’s idea for controlling votes by 'encouraging' home-ownership at any price that is to blame - or the failure of the financial instruments used - nor just the failure of Northern Rock. Hare seems to suggest that it also the failure of the Labour Government to understand that by supping with the devil they would be lead a merry dance, and so they waltzed away into the abyss. Whether that was motivated by calculative manipulation of prospective voters or an equally outrageous innocence in Brown and Darling is not said.
If all this sounds a bit dreary, it is not. The dramatist Hare has taken care to keep us entertained. In front of a huge Bloomberg-like screen he parades the perky, unnamed woman journalist ("If you are paid £20m a year you are not incentivized to look at your accounts"). A dowdy, but proper old-fashioned banker explains the 'raised eyebrow' risk assessment of old, now very appealing indeed. A hedge-fund Yank cries out, "Why didn’t anyone remember Michel Milken?" We are shown many permutations on the theme of banker, educated while being amused, the mark of a great writer. And in a clever, dramatic turn the writer is being taught these secrets of the City by a charming, forceful girl with an eastern accent who is shown to be a refugee from Sarajevo .
I liked his attempt to 'de-vilify' the bankers. While he accuses them of exaggerated self-belief first, they are then shown to be just like any other professional person, limited by their own pride and vanity, as the writer is forced to concede for himself.
The acting is superb (it could have so easily become a sitcom), but generous actors like Jeff Rawle, Simon Williams, Peter Sullivan, and of course, Anthony Calf as the writer, astonish with the nuances they bring. What could have been a dry exploration becomes filled with curiosity and human warmth.
A telling comment on a line by Alan Greenberg, who had said that the Markets may fail, but that that is a price worth paying. But we are left with the writer in wondering about who actually pays that price.
- The Southbank Gourmande
I liked the title and the premise: a dramatist seeks to understand the financial crisis. The power of yes, the awkwardness alerting us to the difficulty of this play. How do you make a play out of something that has destroyed peoples lives? But isn’t that what great drama is all about? The Greeks knew this and their choirs alerted the theatre audience to be watchful of the action as their lives were being discussed. Greek tragedy talked about human existence, and tried to answer important questions about life and death.
And in this play we are also taught - about the financial contexts, the ridiculous role of sub-prime lending, and securitized lending arrangements. We hear about Lehman, the deregulation of the Bank of England, and trillions that seem to hang around the Lyttelton like stale air. Even more ludicrous seems the belief system that underpinned all these 'clever' inventions: bankers' acceptance of the Schulz-Black formula for calculating risk as failsafe, and the assumption that the markets self-regulate in their wisdom. These bright people seem to have been caught in a closed system - and really they should have known that closed systems lead to self-delusion, especially if supported by salaries in the heights we have never seen (and hopefully will never see again). When a greedy City is matched by a greedy Government finding 27% of their tax revenue there, whatever regulation we might have will be a sham.
So we learn that it is the not just the American Government’s idea for controlling votes by 'encouraging' home-ownership at any price that is to blame - or the failure of the financial instruments used - nor just the failure of Northern Rock. Hare seems to suggest that it also the failure of the Labour Government to understand that by supping with the devil they would be lead a merry dance, and so they waltzed away into the abyss. Whether that was motivated by calculative manipulation of prospective voters or an equally outrageous innocence in Brown and Darling is not said.
If all this sounds a bit dreary, it is not. The dramatist Hare has taken care to keep us entertained. In front of a huge Bloomberg-like screen he parades the perky, unnamed woman journalist ("If you are paid £20m a year you are not incentivized to look at your accounts"). A dowdy, but proper old-fashioned banker explains the 'raised eyebrow' risk assessment of old, now very appealing indeed. A hedge-fund Yank cries out, "Why didn’t anyone remember Michel Milken?" We are shown many permutations on the theme of banker, educated while being amused, the mark of a great writer. And in a clever, dramatic turn the writer is being taught these secrets of the City by a charming, forceful girl with an eastern accent who is shown to be a refugee from Sarajevo .
I liked his attempt to 'de-vilify' the bankers. While he accuses them of exaggerated self-belief first, they are then shown to be just like any other professional person, limited by their own pride and vanity, as the writer is forced to concede for himself.
The acting is superb (it could have so easily become a sitcom), but generous actors like Jeff Rawle, Simon Williams, Peter Sullivan, and of course, Anthony Calf as the writer, astonish with the nuances they bring. What could have been a dry exploration becomes filled with curiosity and human warmth.
A telling comment on a line by Alan Greenberg, who had said that the Markets may fail, but that that is a price worth paying. But we are left with the writer in wondering about who actually pays that price.
- The Southbank Gourmande
