Holding court

Wall
Royal Court

Alphabetical Order
Hampstead

David Hare, that marvellously sophisticated, dazzlingly eloquent and faintly ridiculous left-wing brahmin, has written a sequel to Via Dolorosa, his absorbing meditation on the woes of Israel. After the blithering drivel of Seven Jewish Children, Caryl Churchill’s impenetrably tedious response to Israel’s incursion into Gaza, the Royal Court has restored some sanity and intelligence to the debate. Hare’s specific subject is the 486-mile wall (or ‘Fence for Life’ as the Israelis call it) currently being built to keep out suicide bombers. Wall, according to the programme, was ‘directed by Stephen Daldry’. It’s hard to say exactly what ‘directing’ a one-man, one-hour recital might involve, but then we don’t know how much guidance Hare needed after the first run-through. ‘Dave, darling, lovely stuff, but the Shrek costume and the bunch of carnations between the teeth? Not really working. Do it in a shirt and a pair of trousers.’

Hare’s first problem, objectivity, he resolves as best he can by sharing his time equally between both sides and by looking for the good, the rational, the consensual, wherever possible. But he still can’t avoid the accusation of partiality. Some in the pro-Israel camp have objected that by returning to this turf rather than examining the disputed regions of, say, Tibet or Kashmir, he automatically betrays a degree of prejudice. Strange assumption there: scrutiny equals bias. It’s even stranger to imagine that Hare is some elevated, pure-minded sage. Hare is a music-hall turn who goes where the box office leads. Israel/Palestine attracts him because it passes the recognition test and tops the poll of the world’s most talked-about ethnic conflicts. And London has sizeable minorities of Jews and Arabs with both the inclination and the cash to hear his stand-up tragedy routines.