A would-be theatrical epic that might have fared better on Radio 4
A Museum in Baghdad
RSC Swan, Stratford-upon-avon ★★★★★
To read about the life and times of Gertrude Bell is to face the prospect of your jaw dropping to the floor and needing reconstructive surgery. Born (in 1868) in Durham to manufacturing wealth and progressiveminded privilege, she made the most of every opportunity, her personality forceful, restless, inquisitive.
In 1888, she became the first woman to gain first-class honours in modern history at Oxford and then set off to see the world, going around it twice, founding Iraq and engaging in the kind of exploration and escapades one associates with TE Lawrence. After her death in 1926, King Faisal (of Iraq) paid tribute and said “She could play a man’s part in the action … She ventured alone and disguised into the remotest districts. Death held no fear for her …”
A 2015 biopic, Queen of the Desert proved a costly flop. Given that theatre is crying out for strong female roles, and that Bell resembles a bold heroine, you’d think that in Hannah Khalil’s play, which looks at Bell’s 1926 founding of the Baghdad Archaeological Museum (now the Iraq Museum), the RSC had struck the richest of seams.
Alas, not quite. It has taken Khalil (of Palestinian-irish heritage) a decade to bring this pioneer to life in a finished script; in the interim, something admirable but convoluted has happened.
The playwright’s attention has expanded to include the fate of the museum in the wake of the 2003 invasion, and its hard-won reopening in 2006. That brings into the frame the brave restoration efforts of the Iraqi archaeologist staff, as well as the US occupying forces. Were these chapters to sit largely separate, possibly either side of an interval, or even in two related plays, the result could not only be instructive but attain the accumulative force of a theatrical epic.
Instead, though, Khalil – with direction from Erica Whyman – has compressed these periods of time, interweaving them, so that one era sits in juxtaposition with the other. There are similar or contrasting sentiments, and points when the same words are spoken simultaneously, most palpably in the choric intonation of portentous phrases in both English and Arabic.
On the plus side, this brings out a thematic line of inquiry – the way colonialist seeds can bear fruit (for good and ill), the relation between national identity and cultural heritage, the power of artefacts and their value vis-à-vis human life. The deficit is that the characters often resemble mouthpieces, the tone inclines to arid seriousness and historical particularity sits beside mystical musings on the influence of the past and course of fate.
I was left time-straddle sore, yearning for more straightforward details about Bell’s handling of herself in this far-off land and less about the supposed ignorance of US soldiers. Emma Fielding’s Gertrude is present yet oddly marginalised. In a calm, intelligent, forthright manner, she confides in her fellow archaeologist Leonard Woolley, their expositional exchanges reminiscent of a workaday Radio 4 drama. And perhaps it’s radio – notwithstanding Tom Piper’s dutiful design of work-tables and exhibit-racks (redeemed by a final coup de théâtre) – where this piece would best belong.
Until Jan 25. Tickets: 01789 331111; rsc. org.uk; then at Kiln Theatre, London NW6 (020 7328 1000), April 22-May 23