Call it a theatrical Catch-22: were it not for Rude Guerrilla’s penchant for
producing contemporary British playwrights, local theater audiences would
rarely, if ever, experience the class-conscious, heavily sexual and
politicized work found in the in-yer-face school of British playwrighting.
But because RGTC has produced so many works by playwrights like David
Harrower, Sarah Kane, Anthony Neilson, Joe Penhall and Mark Ravenhill over
the past five years, its current production, Osama the Hero, feels too
familiar to really deliver the theatrical slap in the face that it should.

The title of Dennis Kelly’s play prompted British police to guard the London
theater where it opened last year. But the play—centered on a term paper
written by a disaffected student, suggesting Osama Bin Laden is as great a
hero to his devotees as Winston Churchill was to his—is really about fear
and ignorance, and how the perversions and private hurts of the marginalized
and dispossessed English underclass can manifest in a kind of terror that a
suicide bomber could relate to.

Gary (an excellently loopy yet sympathetic Alex Walters) seems to envy the
fact that Bin Laden and Co. believe in something: compared to the thugs,
perverts and sadomasochists in his neighborhood, they serve a higher
purpose. But when garages and trash bins begin blowing up around him, Gary’s
examination of Bin Laden as hero makes him the primary suspect and gives his
ignorant neighbors license to confront him.

It’s an intriguing setup, but Kelly’s structure is awkward, and even Scott
Barber’s highly focused direction doesn’t clarify the play’s inherent flaws.
You’re never too sure who the play is truly about, which diffuses its
intensity. And bookending a vicious beating with a series of vignettes and
monologues that, I think, are intended to illuminate the complicated psyches
of the play’s other characters equally muddles up the joint. These
characters just aren’t that interesting because we’ve seen them all so many
times before: the young British thug, the sexually terrorized woman, the
prim and proper English pedophile.

On its own terms, Osama the Hero might be a disturbing, provocative piece of
theater. But in its proper context, viewed against the plays and events of
its world, it feels like it’s trying too hard to be exactly that type of
play. And that kind of hubris rarely works in the theater.

OSAMA THE HERO, EMPIRE THEATER, 200 N. BROADWAY, SANTA ANA, (714) 547-4688.
FRI.-SAT., 8 P.M.; SUN., 2:30 P.M. ALSO THURS., MARCH 9, 8 P.M. THROUGH
MARCH 11. $10-$20.

EXCORIATING "OSAMA THE HERO"

"You don't need evidence for terrorists," says one archetype in "Osama the
Hero" at the Rude Guerrilla Theater Company, and a topical chill fills the
house. British playwright Dennis Kelly's 2005 excoriation of the current
culture of fear scores stark frissons in its U.S. premiere.
The play's title refers to a classroom speech made by Gary (Alex Walters), a
misfit who takes on a non-Western perspective on terrorism. Gary's account
of his viewpoint interweaves with two couples from an inner-city housing
estate in London. Francis (Ryan Harris), an unemployed, self-ordained,
vigilante, lives with his outwardly rational sister Louise (Brenda
Kenworthy). Middle-aged, married Mark (Rick Kopps) plays out his mid-life
crisis with teenage Mandy (Jennifer Cadena) as a fantasy TV celebrity.
At the prologue's peak, references to a bombing on the estate cue to a coup
de théâtre. Director Scott Barber's soundtrack booms, lighting designer Ryan
Maes goes Bauhaus, and one wall of designer Steven Parker's garage interior
gives way. What ensues is a harrowing cautionary tale about how terrorism
affects the terrorized, ending in another group monologue and a final
tableau that is hard to shake.
Kelly's staccato, unsparing style denotes a vital new voice. Barring some
dialect tussles, Barber's febrile actors deliver the goods. Walters is
beyond praise in his nervous spontaneity and physical courage. Harris, as
ever the chameleon, is both hateful and pathetic as Francis. Kenworthy's
Louise seems composed of pure nerve ends. As Mark, Kopps over does the
accent, but his characterization is apt, and Cadena slyly delves beneath
Mandy's ingenuousness.
-- David C. Nichols

By ERIC MARCHESE
SPECIAL TO THE REGISTER

For Western democracies preoccupied with responding to acts of terrorism,
one of the critical questions of the past several years has been whether the
end goals of efforts to combat terrorism justify the means

That question so thoroughly pervades the Dennis Kelly drama "Osama the Hero"
that even if none of his characters posed it aloud, we'd still get the
point: To what lengths are we willing to go, and what atrocities would we be
willing to commit, to fight terrorism - and when have we crossed the line,
eroding the very liberties we're purportedly fighting to preserve?

As Rude Guerrilla Theater Company's U.S. premiere of the 2004 show proves,
"Osama the Hero" isn't anywhere near as provocative as its title might
suggest. The story's time, place and characters are deliberately vague,
which only makes its ideas more accessible.

Unfolding in England, the action is composed of three separate threads,
which Kelly intercuts. Siblings Francis (Ryan Harris) and Louise (Brenda
Kenworthy) verbally spar. Their neighbor is Mark (Rick Kopps), a wealthy
50-year-old desperately in love with his young friend Mandy (Jennifer
Cadena), who would rather keep things platonic.

Kelly spends the most time on high school student Gary (Alex Walters).
Calmly and in earnest, the character delivers monologues on the state of
fear he sees all around him and the random nature of terrorist acts. He
describes himself as "fairly average at everything I do" - a trait, he
notes, that has helped him to survive.

Assigned to write about "a contemporary hero," then deliver the finished
paper to the class, Gary chooses Osama bin Laden - heroic, he believes, for
turning his back on his family's wealth and for his willingness to die for
his beliefs.

After the play's turning point, a massive explosion that rips apart a huge
chunk of Mark's estate, Kelly intertwines the story lines: Francis, Louise
and Mark appoint themselves as vigilantes. Suspecting Gary, they capture
him, binding him to a chair in Mark's burned-out garage. Once Mandy informs
them of Gary's interest in bin Laden, they begin a harrowing torture
session.

Director Scott Barber not only has a formidable quintet of actors, but also
a knowing control of the material and its textures. Barber and company
respect the script's nonspecificity, with no qualms about depicting its
gore. Gary insists he's not the bomber and that he knows nothing about it -
yet, Louise insists, "we did a good thing here today," exposing the ability
of "Hero" to force us to examine our values, as individuals and as a
society.

Harris' Francis at first seems the most capable of fanaticism, but it's
Kenworthy's Louise who trumps him when it comes to barbaric behavior as
Francis reacts in shock. Louise best embodies the complexities of the
paradox posed by the play: Her empathy for tortured Brits and Americans is
deep, yet it fuels rage toward anyone who may perpetrate violence against
those who live in free societies.

Kopps portrays Mark as a self-absorbed twit unwittingly complicit in
torturing Gary, privately still grieving for the son who died in infancy.
Cadena's pouty Mandy matches Mark's self-centeredness, yet belatedly gains a
crucial insight: When it comes to fighting terrorism, she realizes, "there's
no one in charge who knows best."

Walters astutely plays Gary not as a fanatic nor a cipher, but as just your
average teen who craves something noble to believe in and is eager to
understand the complex adult world around him. That his exploration proves
his downfall is the stuff of dramatic tragedy. In the end, though, we're not
mourning his fate so much as the loss of our own humanity.

‘Osama the Hero’

When Through March 11. 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays, 8 p.m.
March 2