The impending General Election, on May 7, makes this touring revival of David Hare’s 1993 play especially welcome. Much of the genesis of The Absence of War stems from David’s immersion in Labour’s campaign, under the leadership of Neil Kinnock, for the General Election of April 1992.

So why has director Jeremy Herrin and his company Headlong decided to revive this play – at this particular time?

“I was looking for a play with a bit of heft to take around the country during the run-up to the General Election,“ David says. “Because it was too closely identified with Neil Kinnock and Labour’s election campaign in 1992, it didn’t get the credit it deserved and the universality of the story was not fully appreciated. More than 20 years after it was first produced, it is still the most accurate analysis of the problems facing the Centre Left in Britain today.“

The play’s title refers to David’s contention that a figurative war should be raging at the moment, given the state of British society, and yet the metaphorical guns have fallen eerily silent in what he describes as “this awful quiescence.“

In the play, David argues through the medium of George Jones, the fictional party leader, that the Labour Party has an in-built disadvantage compared with its Conservative opponents, a hard fact with which Jones and Neil Kinnock and perhaps Ed Miliband have all had to contend.

“The party of money, ie the Tories, sees its job principally to make the country rich and their arguments will therefore have an agreed purpose. The Labour Party, however, wants to make the country fair and you are always going to have disagreements about what that means. Kinnock and Jones cannot persuade enough people to make that leap of faith and see them as potential Prime Ministers.

“Neil Kinnock told me of the visit he’d made outside London shortly before Polling Day. Although people were wishing him luck, they would not look him in the eye and it was then that Kinnock knew that they weren’t going to vote for him and that the Election was lost.“

Only 18 months separated the 1992 General Election and the opening of The Absence of War at the National Theatre in October 1993 and in retrospect David rather regrets the identification of Neil Kinnock with his fictional counterpart.

“People wondered why George Jones wasn’t Welsh!“

Understandably Lord Kinnock was eager to see the play. What was his reaction?

“He said that it was the most uncomfortable three hours he’d ever spent,“ replies David, a response which in its way is something of a compliment.

It is equally fascinating to hear what another Labour leader made of the play, a Labour leader who won General Elections.

“Tony Blair told me that seeing the play crystallised his determination not to go through the same process as Kinnock,“ David reveals. The power of the theatre, indeed!

With the passage of the years, The Absence of War has inevitably loosened its ties with Neil Kinnock and the 1992 General Election. Some of today’s audiences will come to the play oblivious to its factual connections. What then are the universal themes which the play explores?

“I think that the play is about a particular crisis in the Left in this country,“ replies David. “What does a left-wing, redistributive party stand for nowadays? Capitalism would appear to have been accepted as a universal system and so what would a modern left-wing party look like and how would it operate?

“I don’t think Ed Miliband is any nearer to finding an answer and this makes the play frighteningly resonant.“

 

Al Senter