Bruce Graham’s The Duration marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York’s iconic Twin Towers. With two decades of media attention firmly fixed on graphic images of that September day’s momentous events, the play invites audiences to consider the residual impact for individuals and wider society, writes Carolyn Hart Taylor…
Eddie died in the attack, his death haunts his mother Audrey(Sarah Finigan); the festering trauma has resulted in a blunt-talking, gun-owning mother fleeing to a mountain cabin. Gutsy talk is merely a veneer for her deep-seated fear of further terrorism but equally an avoidance of the violence she might unleash. Audrey frightens herself after judging her hijab-wearing co-worker, hesitantly admitting, ‘I almost attacked this young woman’.
Allowing audiences insight in to her irrational thoughts, reveals that Audrey’s downward spiral is driven by a grief fueled by media stereotypes and sensationalism.
Eddie’s twin, Emma(Florence Roberts), an educated, independent city girl, bounces between therapy groups and her mother’s cabin. Through Emma we see a vulnerable but volcanic woman weighted with the loss of her dead brother and denied comfort from her frozen mother. Making sense of it all, she desperately tries convincing her mother to stop target practice, cease caring for feral cats, and to return from the mountains to a busy city life. While stating, ‘Maybe we want to make the world a little less ugly’, Emma misses her own part in the human dynamic of hate.
Emma’s mountain visit leads to casual mocking of small-town buffet bars, trite bumper-stickers, and labelling the community uneducated and narrow-minded. Her character alerts us to the danger of planting the seeds of difference that grow to form barriers that ultimately lead to wars. Emma is clear-sighted at her therapy group where she vehemently argues against damaging opinions and tabloid-emblazoned headlines, but closer to home she’s oblivious to her faults.
This three-character play reinforces the sense of alienation borne out of fear but equally allows the characters to express their fixation on unexpressed grief. After all, amongst all the headlines, the victims like Eddie were not spoken about as individuals, they became statistics.
Profoundly thought-provoking and quite brilliant.
Omnibus Theatre, 1 Clapham Common North Side, London SW4 0QW until 26th September. Times: 7.30pm; Saturday Matinee, 2.30pm, Sunday Matinee, 4.15pm. Admission: £16, £10.
Box Office: 020 7498 4699 or https://www.omnibus-clapham.org/the-duration/