Contemporary Duologues: Two Men

The Duologues

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#aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei

Howard Brenton

WHO‘Sportsman’, an interrogator, Chinese, and Ai Weiwei, conceptual artist, Chinese.

WHEREA small narrow room in a Chinese prison.

WHENSpring 2011.

WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENEDOn the 3rd April 2011, as he was about to board a plane for Taiwan, the world-famous Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was arrested at Beijing Airport. He was detained for a further eighty-one days, during which time he was regularly interrogated (before being released on bail, charged with tax evasion). In the following duologue, Ai Weiwei is being questioned by an official described in the play as ‘Sportsman’.

WHAT TO CONSIDER

• The play is based on Hanging Man , an account Ai Weiwei gave directly after his release from prison to British arts journalist Barnaby Martin. You may wish to read it.

• Read Howard Brenton’s fascinating introduction to the play, in which he tells how he was approached to write the play at Ai Weiwei’s request.

• Research the work and political activism of Ai Weiwei. Howard Brenton observes: ‘So much conceptual work in the West is tediously egocentric, it is all me me me Ai Weiwei’s work is not about himself, it is turned outwards toward other people, society and the world, it is all us us us.’ This tells us something about the generosity of the man, which you will need to capture in playing him.

• Ai Weiwei’s bravery and strength of character. He has been unafraid to criticise China’s oppressive regime and continues to fight for freedom of expression. The fact that he survived the eighty-one days without having been crushed is testament to his resilience.

• The ‘Sportsman’. It is important that the interrogator is a fully rounded character. We may not agree with his beliefs, we may dismiss them as propaganda or indoctrination, but in playing him you will need to get behind the psyche of a man who believes that what he is doing is right, dutiful and good.

• The Sportsman is described as ‘fit’. He wears jeans and a Manchester United football shirt.

• Their relationship. Brenton describes Ai Weiwei’s encounters with his interrogators as a ‘Stockholm syndrome in reverse’: in other words, the captors become fascinated by their captive. Find the points in the duologue where the Sportsman becomes drawn to Ai Weiwei, where their debate about art or loyalty to the state is stimulating to him. You may like to play the duologue with the Sportsman really enjoying the discussion.

WHAT SPORTSMAN WANTS

• To break Ai Weiwei.

• To protect China and the Communist Party.

• Power.

WHAT AI WEIWEI WANTS

• To defend himself.

• To preserve his sanity.

• To prove to his captors that he has done nothing wrong. (Note the way in which he quotes Mao in order to further his argument.)

WHAT THE SCENE IS ABOUTIndoctrination versus freedom of expression, classicism versus modernity, art and what constitutes it, suppression, domination, frustration, fear of change.

NBThis play offers a number of other duologues from which to choose.

SPORTSMAN. Right. Admit it.

AI WEIWEI. Admit what? […]

SPORTSMAN. ‘I admit the sunflower-seed art is a scam.’

AI WEIWEI. I don’t admit that!

SPORTSMAN. Why not? Aren’t you pleased with yourself? Dumping millions of worthless seeds on London? Seeds made of clay, that can’t even grow!

AI WEIWEI. It’s what people make of them that matters…

SPORTSMAN. I tell you what this is, my friend. A great big fat international economic scam. A load of little bits of clay all over the floor, how can that be art?

AI WEIWEI. It’s art or it’s not art, I don’t care.

SPORTSMAN. What? You say you are an artist and you don’t care about art?

AI WEIWEI. What I care about is providing a new condition. For art.

SPORTSMAN. A new condition for you. More dollars, more euros!

AI WEIWEI. No, a new perspective, and from that angle to see something new…

SPORTSMAN. What view? What angle?

AI WEIWEI. A way of seeing the world, in a new way!

SPORTSMAN. This is gibberish.

AI WEIWEI. No.

SPORTSMAN. Prententious, arty nonsense.

AI WEIWEI. No! But it’s not logical, not practical. This kind of art deals with people’s lives, directly. It intervenes in life. Creativity is… is the power to reject the past, change the status quo, seek new potential…

SPORTSMAN. And how can a load of grey sunflower seeds piled up in a room do that? Art must be beautiful, what’s beautiful about your crap?

AI WEIWEI. The beauty is in people…

SPORTSMAN. What do you know of the people, the masses? I tell you what the masses want from art workers! A good picture, a tree that looks like a tree, mountain, woman, something uplifting, not a load of bits of clay, smashed-up furniture in a room, people wandering about a foreign city!

AI WEIWEI. You’re talking about the classical view of art.

SPORTSMAN. I am, and you piss all over it! And it’s more than being a conman. You insult China.

AI WEIWEI. How do I that?

SPORTSMAN. You insult the Party!

AI WEIWEI. But how?

SPORTSMAN. With this!

He gives AI WEIWEI a colour printout of the ‘Study of Perspective’ photograph in Tiananmen.

In Tiananmen Square. Holding up your hand in a gesture to Mao’s portrait over the Gate of Heavenly Peace. You are giving the finger to the Great Helmsman!

He makes the rude middle-finger gesture in AI WEIWEI’s face, holding the photograph in his other hand.

AI WEIWEI. No, that’s only part of a larger work called Study in Perspective.

SPORTSMAN. Don’t take the piss, Weiwei. I may not be as rich as you, I may not be as clever, but I know when the piss is being taken!

AI WEIWEI. I’m not cleverer than you, we are all as clever as each other. That photograph is one of a series. There’s one in front of St Marks in Venice, one in front of the Coliseum in Rome, there’s one in Paris in front of the Eiffel Tower, there’s even one in Washington in front of the White House… (Holds up the middle finger of his free hand, puts it down.) It’s how artists judge perspective in paintings. And the point I’m making is… it doesn’t work any more! The classical view is very limited. It can’t really cope with today’s life, or today’s understanding of ourselves, or our universe. And art must cope with our life. All of it. Even this, you and me in this room, it must cope with everything, else what is it? Meaningless pretty trees, pictures that mean nothing! And I want art that means… Everything!

A beat. […]

SPORTSMAN (to AI WEIWEI). You are a conman.

AI WEIWEI. Please, please, understand. You can understand. Everyone can understand. […]

SPORTSMAN. You blogged.

AI WEIWEI. Yes…

SPORTSMAN. You attack the Communist Party of China.

AI WEIWEI. I wrote many things on my blog, before you closed it down…

SPORTSMAN. But you have fouled the water, what you wrote has been read. (Reads.) ‘This Government is the most unreliable, unacceptable government.’ What does that mean?

AI WEIWEI. It means what it means.

SPORTSMAN. When you say ‘this Government’ what government do you mean?

AI WEIWEI. Careful, be careful, struggle in your mind to be careful. (To SPORTSMAN.) That is just the article, I wrote it that way. You have to just read the article.

SPORTSMAN. Why are you being so timid? Are you scared of us? You always say you are very open! Why can’t you say very clearly what you meant by ‘this Government’?

AI WEIWEI. If you don’t understand the article, give it here, I’ll rewrite it for you right now!

SPORTSMAN (shouts). Don’t be clever with me! You are a pornographer and a criminal.

AI WEIWEI. Why do you suddenly say I am a pornographer?

SPORTSMAN. I’ve researched what you call your art, I’ve seen the filthy nude photos you took.

AI WEIWEI. Nude images are as old as art itself.

SPORTSMAN. So is pornography.

AI WEIWEI. The nude in art is about our humanity, the photos were about our humanity!

SPORTSMAN. You photographed your wife in Tiananmen Square, lifting up her skirt!

AI WEIWEI. That’s just fun.

SPORTSMAN. Fun? Your wife showing her knickers? Little knickers too! You like me looking at your wife’s little knickers? Like men looking? It’s porn. It’s publicity, all over the internet?

AI WEIWEI. It’s life! Life!

SPORTSMAN. Porn and politics, your rubbish art, it’s all the same to you, just a con, to make money!

AI WEIWEI. Why do you go back to the money all the time? If you have the evidence against me, why do we go through this? Why don’t you just… throw me away?

SPORTSMAN. We can. We will. If you don’t admit your crimes.

AI WEIWEI. What crimes? (Shouts.) What? What?

AI WEIWEI is straining forward, pulling against the handcuffs.

Dead still.

SPORTSMAN. We have watched you for one year, you know. We have twenty-one accounts of close engagement.

AI WEIWEI. Close…

SPORTSMAN. Meetings with hostile forces. Enemies of the state, Chinese and foreign.

AI WEIWEI. So why suddenly arrest me now?

SPORTSMAN stares at him.

Who has decided?

SPORTSMAN hands him a paper.

SPORTSMAN. Read that.

AI WEIWEI takes the paper.

AI WEIWEI reading.

A beat.

You blogged that.

AI WEIWEI. Yes but…

SPORTSMAN. Do you wonder why your blog was closed down?

AI WEIWEI. It’s free expression…

SPORTSMAN. It’s state subversion. It attacks the Communist Party of China.

AI WEIWEI. Yes but…

SPORTSMAN. You curse the Party!

AI WEIWEI staring at the blog.

The sentence underlined. Read it.

A beat.

Read!

AI WEIWEI (reads). ‘Fuck your mother, the Communist Party.’

SPORTSMAN. Again!

AI WEIWEI. ‘Fuck your mother, the Communist Party.’

SPORTSMAN. Again!

AI WEIWEI. ‘Fuck your mother, the Communist Party.’

SPORTSMAN. Again!

AI WEIWEI. Blogs are satire, I wrote fast, in heat…

SPORTSMAN. Again!

AI WEIWEI. It’s the net, it’s freedom, why should I not say anything I like, why not, I’m human!

SPORTSMAN. Again!

AI WEIWEI. Fuck your mother, the Communist Party, fuck you, fuck you all, fuck you!

He bursts into tears. The paper slides from his hand on to the floor.

He lowers his head.

SPORTSMAN. Yes. Yes. There we have it. Yes. That’s it.

A beat. AI WEIWEI looks up.

AI WEIWEI. You say I am a hooligan, but you created me. Can’t you see that?

SPORTSMAN. Nevertheless, Ai Weiwei, the blog is clear evidence of state subversion.

AI WEIWEI. It was in the moment. You can do that, live in the moment. You can, if you’re free.

SPORTSMAN. Gibberish. But I think you are a little bit shocked.

A beat. […]

AI WEIWEI (quoting). ‘It is necessary to investigate both the facts and the history of a problem in order to study and understand it.’

A beat.

SPORTSMAN. What?

AI WEIWEI (quoting). ‘Marxist dialectical materialism, which demonstrates the constant struggle between opposites in an empirical setting, is the best method toward constant improvement. Objective analysis of problems based on empirical results is at a premium.’

SPORTSMAN. What are you talking about?

AI WEIWEI. I’m quoting Mao in his Little Red Book. He’s right. Analyse China’s problems, find a way forward, improve.

SPORTSMAN You know so much more than we do, it’s so sad. (Close to him.) Weiwei, you won’t survive what they do to you in prison. Two years and even if you’re not dead, your mind will have gone. You will be destroyed.

2nd May 1997

Jack Thorne

WHOJake and Will, both sixth-formers, aged eighteen.

WHEREJake’s bedroom.

WHEN7.37 a.m., 2nd May 1997.

WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENEDJake and Will, both eighteen, have been asleep in each other’s arms. Jake is the first to wake. He goes to the bathroom, waking Will as he does so. Will gets up. He has an erection. Will gets back into bed, doing his best to conceal his erection. Jake returns to the bedroom with a stack of newspapers and an apple. Will pretends to be asleep. It is the morning after the election night in which Tony Blair led a landslide victory for the Labour Party. Despite the excitement, it is also a normal school day for which the boys must get ready. This scene comes at the end of a full-length play which has shown us two other couples earlier that night.

WHAT TO CONSIDER

• It was hot in London that night and there was an atmosphere of shock and excitement as many high-profile Conservative politicians, including Michael Portillo, lost their seats.

• Jack and Will are politically motivated. At eighteen, they will have been able to vote for the first time in a general election.

• Having influence over the outcome has given the boys a rush that has fed into their sexual attraction to one another.

• Despite going to the same school, they are not from the same social class. Think about how you will explore this through accent and the boys’ physicality.

• Will is much clearer about his feelings for Jake. Make a decision about whether Jake can’t or won’t reciprocate. Perhaps he is scared to admit to his feelings.

• Jake’s line: ‘I knew it was going to happen, but not like this…’ followed by: ‘Such a majority. Such a…’ Make sure you capture the beat where Will assumes Jake is talking about the fact that they have slept together, only for Jake to backtrack and to make out that he was referring to the election results.

• Their choice of university. It is significant that the expectation for middle-class Jake to go to Cambridge is compared to that of working-class Will, who is looking to go to Leeds.

• The play was produced in 2009, over a decade later than the time of the play. The hopes and expectations of the new Labour Party to create a better world chimes with those of Jake and Will. The political disillusionment that followed points to the personal disappointment that Will, in particular, must face.

• The whole duologue is much longer than it appears here. You may wish to play the scene in its entirety or to edit it differently.

• Words in [square brackets] are there to indicate intention, and not to be spoken.

WHAT JAKE WANTS

• To prove his intelligence

• To be ‘top dog’. (Notice how competitive he is.)

• To distance himself from Will.

WHAT WILL WANTS

• For Jake to love him back.

WHAT THE SCENE IS ABOUTThe personal and the political, burgeoning sexuality, coming of age, hope, disappointment, the class divide.

NBThis play offers a number of other duologues from which to choose.

JAKE has a stack of newspapers. All the tabloids. And an apple. Which is green. He sits cross-legged on the floor. He starts flicking through.

He stops at a page. He covers it over. He talks in a whisper. JAKE. Jack Cunningham –

Jack Cunningham –

Jack Cunningham –

Jack Cunningham – […]

Cunningham Cunningham –

Richie Cunningham Richie Cunningham –

Jack in the box. Cunningham –

Richie Cunningham in a box.

Richie Cunningham in a box. Richie Cunningham in a box. Happy Days are dead. Jack Cunningham.

WILL opens his eyes and looks at JAKE.

JAKE covers the page over.

WILL closes his eyes again.

Alistair Darling Alistair Darling –

Alistair Alistair Alistair –

He looks at WILL again.

He raises his voice slightly.

Darling Darling Darling –

Will you check the stairs, Darling?

I love you, Darling, will you check the stairs?

I love your stairs, Darling.

Darling Darling Darling, Will, are you awake?

WILL says nothing.

Will… because you’re not making any noise at all, and normally, when people sleep, they make some noise, so are you awake?

Beat.

WILL opens his eyes, thinks, and then closes them again.

And then opens them.

WILL. Uh. Yeah.

JAKE. Did I… [wake you]?

WILL. No.

JAKE. How long have you been…?

WILL. I don’t…

JAKE. Yeah?

WILL. How long since I made a noise? I mean, it’s probably… I should make more… I’ll remember that for next time…

JAKE. Yeah.

Beat.

Yeah.

WILL. What are you…?

JAKE. Remembering the cabinet. Memorising. Trying to. I figured Sharpey might… […]

WILL. Who’ve you got…?

JAKE. I’m starting with the… You heard about Frank Dobson?

WILL. No.

JAKE. Straight in. Health Secretary. They think.

WILL. Yeah?

JAKE. Yeah.

WILL. Wow.

JAKE. Yeah. Pretty huge.

WILL. I don’t even know… where he came from…

JAKE. Select committees, I think. I mean, no… I don’t know. It’s a big promotion…

He looks for and reads.

Environment. He was environment. Shit. I should have… [known] that. Which is now – I think, Prescott. Part of Prescott’s super ministry, have you? Oh. That’s… […]

WILL. Wow.

JAKE. Yeah. Yeah.

Beat. WILL thinks and then sits up.

WILL. Did we – drink a lot last night?

JAKE. No. Not…

WILL. We didn’t.

JAKE. No?

WILL. No.

JAKE. I mean, a bit… toasted a few in. Toasted a few out. Lots of toast. With red jam on top.

WILL smiles.

WILL. I thought we…

JAKE. A bit.

WILL. Yeah. Because we didn’t top-and-tail