PROPHECY (Islington Gazette)
nlnews@archant.co.uk
24 September 2008
New End Theatre, New End, Hampstead, NW3
The New End Theatre's and Three Collaborative's premiere of the political drama Prophecy offers its audience a compelling, and at times complicated, tale of the tragedies of war and the ongoing physical and emotional effects it has on both the civilians and combatants caught up in man's inhumanity to his fellow man.
Karen Malpede's tale weaves the ongoing disastrous American presence in Iraq and their equally devastating sojourn from 1963 until their ignominious departure in 1975.
Sarah Golden (Susan Penhaligon) is a Jewish New York drama tutor, her husband Alan (George Bartenieff) the head of a refugee relief organisation.
Children of the 1960s and involved in the then student anti-war movement, their own middle-aged married existence is still coloured by the effect the Vietnam War had on decisions both of them made 30 years before.
Jeremy (Jos Vantyler) is a promising first year drama student with a dark tragic secret. Like many of the ex-Vietnam vets, his period in Iraq as a foot soldier, has deeply disturbed him – and with ultimately tragic consequences.
Interwoven within this tale is a parallel story cataloguing the pregnancy of Sarah and her ultimate "forced" abortion and subsequent infertility thereafter and the extra-marital affaire, years later of Alan, with a Palestinian collegue resulting in a child,
Prophecy certainly isn't easy watching and is often complicated in structure, but there is evident humour peppered throughout, often of a dark nature.
A well written and executed piece of drama that makes for intelligent theatre. Certainly worth a visit.