The Cry

In a bare, burnt-out room buried deep within a Chambers Street building, three men stand opposite each other in a tiny cell fashioned from steel crowd barriers. On one side are two torturers in balaclavas; on the other a bare-chested prisoner, kneeling in fearful anticipation. This is the frightening site-specific staging for The Cry, Badac Theatre’s chilling exploration of imprisonment and torture.

The play centres around the real-life experience of Palestinian poet Ghazi Hussein, imprisoned over 20 times for a career of artistic transgressions. Played here by Badac founder Steve Lambert, we watch on helplessly as Hussein is tormented physically and emotionally by his captors.  His only instrument of defiance are the poems that flow instinctively from his body.

Like all Badac’s work, The Cry attempts to totally immerse its audience in the horror of its subject matter. But, although the theatrical imagining of torture seems frighteningly realistic (Lambert has had to take time off recently after tearing ligaments during the show), the play somehow fails to create a completely immersive experience. In large part this is due to the venue, where faint but persistent sounds of beer-fuelled revelry distract heavily from the play’s sense of imprisonment and claustrophobia. The lyrical script also jars at times, particularly when contrasted with the realist atmosphere of the torture scenes. 

Flaws aside, though, this remains a brave and provocative piece of theatre. Graphically illuminating the darkest of human practices, The Cry demonstrates how torture can cruelly strip away not only political identities but often all semblance of human creativity and selfhood.