David Hare (1) (1947–)

Stuff Happens is a play by David Hare, written in response to the Iraq War. Hare describes it as "a history play" that deals with recent history. The title is inspired by Donald Rumsfeld's response to widespread looting in Baghdad: "Stuff happens and it’s untidy, and freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.” (April 11, 2003)

The play presents a mix of viewpoints, including arguments for and against the attack on Iraq. It mixes verbatim re-creations of real speeches, meetings, press conferences and fictionalized versions of private meetings between members of the Bush and Blair administrations. The play also includes international figures such as Hans Blix and Dominique de Villepin. An ensemble cast plays over 40 roles during the 3-hour play, although the actors playing the principals—Bush, Rice, Powell—play only one role.

In 2020, Andy Propst of Time Out dubbed Stuff Happens "one of the most impressive political dramas to emerge in recent memory" and ranked it the 30th greatest play of all time. (Wikipedia)… (més)

Simenon on Stage
Review of the Faber & Faber paperback edition (October 2016) adapted from the first* English language translation "The Man on the Bench in the Barn|12876596] (1970) by Moura Budberg of the Georges Simenon novel "La Main" (1968)

See photograph at https://thepanoptic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/The-Red-Barn-1024x572.jpg
Actors Mark Strong as Donald Dodd and Elizabeth Debicki as Mona Sanders in the National Theatre's 2016 staging of "The Red Barn". Photograph sourced from a review at Panoptic UK.

I was not very enthusiastic in my recent review of the latest translation of The Hand in my ongoing 2022 reading of Georges Simenon's romans durs (hard novels) alongside his Chief Inspector Maigrets. That was partly due to overexposure to too many of the Simenon protagonists seeking to escape their mundane lives. The lunatic ending was an extra downer which left no room for empathy.

David Hare's adaptation distills the novel's essence into three acts of several scenes each and adds more mystery and suspense to the situation. Various early events are seen as later interspersed flashbacks for instance, rather than as part of the exposition. The manipulation of events by Ingrid Dodd (for some reason she is re-named from the Isabel Dodd in the novel) was also made more overt. You don't get the inner thoughts of the Donald Dodd character, so the actor has to make an increased effort in mannerisms to convey the descent into the final madness, which is still a shock but certainly makes for a gut punch finale.

Trivia and Links
Playwright David Hare's September 25, 2016 article in the Observer/Guardian to promote the National Theatre's staging of The Red Barn is the same as his Introduction to the play in the Faber & Faber paperback and you can read it here.

The National Theatre filmed a "Behind the Scene Changes" video which reveals the huge amount of backstage work for its 2016 production of The Red Barn and you can watch it here. I could not find a trailer for the actual show itself.

* The book was later translated by Linda Coverdale in 2016 for the Penguin Modern Classics series of Georges Simenon reissues.… (més)