Theatre - The Hostage

Recently elected Lewes Lib Dem. Councillor Mike Turner has a lot on his plate at the moment, because he’s also been directing Brendan Behan’s play The Hostage, about to start its run at the Lewes Little Theatre. He tells me “the audience may be surprised at the political incorrectness of language”. Behan was born in Dublin in 1923 to working class Catholic parents. He became involved in the IRA aged sixteen, joining Fianna, the Republican youth movement aimed at gaining recruits for the senior branch. Arrested in Liverpool in 1939, Behan was found in possession of explosives with which he intended to attack naval vessels in the port single-handedly. He was put into borstal in England, and when he came out, he ended up writing a book about his experiences.
He wrote The Hostage in 1957, in the style of Commedia dell’arte, and originally written in Gaelic under the title An Gail. Brendan’s uncle Peader Kearney wrote the Soldier’s Song, which became the Irish National Anthem, and which is used in this production. The action is set in Dublin in 1958 in a disreputable lodging house, where a group of IRA volunteers capture and keep hostage a British soldier. The fun aspects of the play include singing and dancing by the eclectic collection of rogues, whores and vagabonds inhabitants, whose lives are interrupted by the presence of the hostage. Mike tells me “the more sinister side is represented by the differences between the romantic memories of past republican battles and the bumbling but deadly incompetence of the contemporary IRA organisers”. EC