Cardiff High School
Wed 18 May
★★★★★
words: GARETH LUDKIN
When detained in 2010 on suspicion of leaking restricted US Army material to the whistleblowing website Wikileaks, Private Bradley Manning was thrust into the public eye, becoming the subject of conjuncture, rumour and castigation. Jailed without charge and tortured at the hands of his own government, Manning was left languishing in solitary confinement for well over a year; his case still left unanswered and his treatment still questionable.
National Theatre Wales’ The Radicalisation Of Bradley Manning sets out to imagine how an American soldier, schooled in Haverfordwest, South Wales, became ‘radicalised’, and how his tumultuous life led to the leaking of 250,000 potent and incontrovertible documents – including the now infamous “collateral murder video” which shook the world upon its release.
Written by Tim Price and directed by John McGrath, the play joins the dots and interprets the key events that lead to Manning’s ultimate ‘betrayal’. In what’s already a complex and disorientating case for those who’ve failed to dig further than the headlines, The Radicalisation Of Bradley Manning goes a long way toward recognising a man of immense courage, intelligence and political nouse; reminding us of his early days in Wales and the key events that lead to his decisions.
We’re brought to the stage through the school’s corridors which are filled with a form of white torture: booming, disorientating noise which fills the ears and corridors as we make our way to the school’s hall. Flanked on all sides by the evening’s audience, the six young actors at the heart of Manning’s story then take us back to Tasker Milward School in Haverfordwest where we find Manning bullied and ostracised by his fellow classmates as the only American in the class. The non-linear story then smartly moves between Oklahoma, Quantico Brig detention centre and back to his early school days.
The audience, through stylishly choreographed set changes that expertly utilise the space, watch as Manning negotiates a series of dead-end jobs and early training in the army – where he is once again castigated as the “runt” of the pack – as well as a gay relationship with a student and his realisation of his power at the heart of strategic intelligence in Iraq, where no-one seems to care about much else than themselves. Each member of the cast (male and female) takes it in turn to play Bradley as the set continues to frenetically and viscerally chop and change. The actors’ young age also serves to remind us of Manning’s own young age.
His time at Tasker Milward School is largely of Tim Price’s own imagination, however, there’s a sharp and pointed edge to the writing which challenges the treatment of Bradley through the allegorical history lessons at his school; those of the Battle Of Hasting and the Merthyr Uprising in which Dic Penderyn was seen as a martyr after wrongly being convicted of murder. The young Manning role-plays Penderyn’s part in the school lesson and challenges his status as a martyr. “Oh what an injustice”, “I’m innocent”, “I got caught and blamed for something I didn’t do”.
The play’s brilliant set design and rapid pace sees the non-linear story continue through to Manning’s discharge from the army and the leaking of incriminating documents. John McGrath’s direction adds to the visceral nature of the piece, and the knowledge that Manning’s mother came to see the production in Haverfordwest, much of Price’s dialogue all the more powerful.
A masterful interpretation of a courageous man’s young life, The Radicalisation Of Bradley Manning is smart, pointed, revealing and thoroughly engaging.
