Terror - Lyric Hammersmith

[daniel]

Is anybody seeing this?

Tickets are cheap and it sounds intriguing...two different endings depending on how the audience jury vote!

"Guilty. Not Guilty. You Decide.
Enter the courtroom. Hear the evidence. Make your judgement.
A hijacked plane is heading towards a packed football stadium. Ignoring orders to the contrary a fighter pilot shoots the plane down killing 164 people to save 70,000.

Put on trial and charged with murder, the fate of the pilot is in the audience’s hands.

The Lyric presents the UK Premiere of Ferdinand von Schirach’s thrilling courtroom drama. A worldwide phenomenon that has been stirring debate across the globe. The production is directed by the Lyric’s Artistic Director, Sean Holmes and designed by Olivier Award-winner Anna Fleischle."

lyric.co.uk/shows/terror/

[showgirl]

Missed this when you originally posted it, daniel, but I booked (a cheap seat) a while back, thinking that both the subject and the concept sounded interesting - though as a result, each performance will be different so it might be hard for reviewers to let the public know what to expect.

[Steve]

Saw this tonight, and it's average. Blurring of the boundaries between moral and legal arguments, coupled with oodles of unnecessary exposition, squander the potential of this fascinating court case, in which the audience are the jury.

Some spoilers follow. . .

A fighter pilot (Ashley Zhangazha) has defied orders, and shot down a passenger plane to prevent terrorists crashing it into 70,000 people in an arena. Is he guilty of murder?

Given that it was the hottest June night in 40 years, he was pouring with sweat, so he looked super guilty. And that was as good a legal reason we were given to convict him as any other we heard all night.

For this show never defines the law we are to apply, it never sets out the available legal defenses, and it never defines what leeway (or not) the judge has in sentencing, should there be a guilty verdict.

The fact we are in Germany, applying German law, means that British audiences have no shorthand to guess any of the above either.

We are told that certain rulings by a European Court define certain human rights, giving an essential value to the human lives on board the plane, but we are explicitly told that this is not binding as far as criminal law goes. Confusing indeed, we are left to our own devices.

The first hour of the show is tedious. We are informed that the facts are agreed on by all parties, told what they are, but then forced to listen to witnesses redundantly recount all these agreed facts regardless, which takes us nowhere.

After that expositional hour is over, a brilliant half hour follows, in which intricate and intriguing moral arguments are made by the prosecuting and defense lawyers. As the prosecutor, Emma Fielding is especially commanding and convincing, and completely redeemed the show for me. Forbes Masson was great also as the defense attorney, but his arguments are nothing you haven't heard before.

Anyway, after the arguments, we adjourned for 15 minutes (the interval), upon which the second "half" of the show was 15 minutes long, in which three hundred audience members pressed buttons and voted on the defendant's guilt. The result was a 2/1 landslide that I anticipate will be repeated at every show.

The flaws in the show were compounded when Tanya Moodie's Judge referred, in summation, to legal defenses, and absurdities in German law, that we had not even been apprised of before we voted.

The voting buttons are a great gimmick, as they invest you in the show, and keep you interested in endless exposition that would otherwise have you parsleying for the exit. But that half hour of moral arguments that follow the first hour of exposition are terrific, so it's worth staying for that.

3 stars.

[viserys]

I'd give you a like for the phrase "parsleying for the exit" alone, but that's also really interesting to read. I never thought about Terror going abroad to countries with different law systems.

It was on television here in Germany, so seven million viewers could vote. 86 percent of them voted "not guilty" by the way.

[RedRose]

I missed it unfortunately at the theatre, but I saw the TV version. They said later in a discussion that the large majority mostly voted "not guilty" in German theatres. With my legal education I would have voted guilty, especially if the prosecuter was excellent. Actually the case it not crystal clear concerning the German laws, there are different opinions among the law experts although there was the suggestion that it is more likely to be a "guilty" concerning just the laws- in opposition to the audiences moral opinion when judging.
It would be interesting if the British audience will vote more often "guilty" or "not guilty".

[Deleted]

I haven't seen the play and I don't have time to see the play, but I suspect I'd vote for guilty. Just because someone goes for the lesser of two evils doesn't mean the lesser evil they went for isn't still an evil, with all the consequences inherent in that. Bear in mind the alternatives when it comes to sentencing, sure, but he still did the thing he's in court for.

Of course, this is all very easy to say when it's a fictional event with no real emotional weight and most of us have no real legal knowledge and you know the actors are all going home that night whatever the verdict and no one actually died.....

[showgirl]

There have been lots of interesting plays lately about terrorism with no doubt many more to come, and though this takes a different approach, it didn't really succeed for me, so I'd put it down as "flawed but interesting". As Steve says above, the first act is long (far too long for me, especially in a sweltering theatre and given that you have to listen to much legal argument and my focus certainly failed towards the end), and is followed by a ludicrously short second part - nothing like even the 15 minutes advertised - when you simply vote, hear the outcome, listen to a brief summing up and then leave.

It would have been far more engaging had there been some doubt about what actually happened; also had there been any content relating to the terrorist or alleged terrorism, but as the plane's hi-jacker is never named and there is no mention of the cause he supported, you don't really know whether it was actually a terrorist incident anyway. Were I being very sceptical, I'd suggest the play might more accurately be named "Torpor" - at some points at least - but I still think it's an interesting experience.

On the evening I saw it, the verdict was again "Not guilty" but I was in the other camp, since as I overheard someone say, if there's no doubt that someone committed the offence and has indeed admitted it, how can you find them not guilty? You are asked a legal, not a moral question.

3 stars from me; I'd like to award some for the venue, though, as it makes a nice change to go somewhere like the Lyric Hammersmith and had I had time, it would certainly have been the weather to join the many people enjoying the fabulous roof garden!