Here We Go

The title of Caryl Churchill's new play, like almost everything else in this cryptic piece of work is fractured and ambiguous. The tone of those three blank words is uncertain. Is it the jolly celebration 'Here we GO!' (think of Michael Stipe in R.E.M.'s 'Shiny Happy People' 2'35")? Or is it the mild dread of the world-weary 'oh HERE we go'? The question is key because Caryl Churchill's play is, in one sense, about death. After all, we might greet death with world-weary dread or as welcome release. A central puzzle about death is, as Damien Hirst put it, its physical impossibility in the mind of someone living. The title captures a little of that too: the title is Here We Go not There We Go. The problem with death is that, almost certainly, it can only be understood in its absence. We can only try and fail to understand there when we are here even though there certainly will have nothing experientially in common with here. And we are here and then we go: the title beautifully dividing between the spatial certainty of here and the indeterminacy of we go. And 'go' too, is delicately undecidable. Something can go with a clear and positive end (let's go home) and the thing that goes remains unchanged in all but location, but sometimes (it's okay, it's gone) when things go, they just go. And go we will, from here. After all.

Usually, I'd be a little sceptical of this sort of finicky close reading of a play's title, but Churchill's new play is so pared down, so careful about its few words that it encourages the closest attention to its details. 

Here We Go falls into three sections. In the first, friends are gathered at the wake of a dead man. In the second, the dead man seems to be in an afterlife of sorts and speaks to us about his experiences. In the third, we go back to before the death, watching the man who will die in a nursing home being wordlessly dressed and then undressed and then dressed and then undressed. The first two scenes are around 10 minutes each, the last around 25. I am sure that a different reading might reveal something I'm not yet seeing, but this struck me as - interestingly - the least political play that Churchill has written for decades. While yeah, sure, everything's political,* this seemed to have a more metaphysical aim, even if the aim is to accept that we are only ever here and further we may not go.

Churchill's used these triptych shapes before. Top Girls and Far Away are also plays where trying to understand the relation between the scenes is generative to any full understanding the play. In Far Away the time that has passed and the events between scenes needs to be filled in by the audience. In Top Girls the chronology is disordered; if the acts were in their 'real' order, it would go 3, 1, 2, though 1 is also outside time altogether. The scenes in Here We Go, ordered chronologically, would probably also go 3, 1, 2, though this time it's 2 that is also outside time altogether.

The thing that struck me was silence. In the first scene, Churchill uses the device she's used in other plays (This is a Chair, drunk enough to say i love you, for example) of giving only a fraction of each sentence, the bare minimum. In the text the lines are not assigned to particular characters but here's a flavour of the dialogue:

and he never actually joined the party because of what they did to the anarchists so
not that he was an anarchist
unless sexually
well yes there
and is the third wife here are they all
in the red hat
isn't that the daughter?
no the big red
and is that her partner with the beard?
all the women seem
except of course
she's keeping very quiet
love of his life
they say

As ever, Churchill is startling in her observation of ordinary speech. Every line here is immaculately observed but the foreshortening of each sentences places a certain silence around it, even though the actors cue tightly around the lines, leaving few gaps, we're aware that there's a fuller version of the scene somewhere, in an imagined and non-real space. A bit like the afterlife. But this eventually falls away. In Dominic Cooke's production the gaps between the lines grow through the first scene. The linguistic silences make themselves felt in actual silence.** 

There's an additional element to the dialogue in the first scene, which is that Churchill has identified a series of short asides to the audience for each character. There are ten, reflecting the likely maximum number of actors you could use. These short asides are the characters describing the circumstances of their own death. For instance,

I die seven years later of a brain tumour. It takes a while for the doctors to pay attention to the headaches but maybe it would have spread anyway.

These moments, according to the text, should be assigned to each actor and spoken at some moment in the first scene (she did something like this with Love and Information). I'm not sure but I felt watching the play that Dominic Cooke had given his cast the choice of when they would say their line; there were moments of instability that suggested the crackle of improvisation. These moments were faintly reminiscent of the moment in Forced Entertainment's First Night where the cast point to individual members of the audience and predict how they're going to die, but this time it's the cast cursing themselves. And it's another of these displacements from the present moment: Here. We Go.

But if the first scene is all about language's elisions generating a vast sense of other space, the opposite happens in scene two. Here (here?), an elderly man stands in a void talking for his life (life?). The scene is all verbal abundance. It's full of ideas, half-thoughts, comic asides, an unpunctuated stream of consciousness:

And for illness or old age here's a blue black giantess come to take me somewhere bleaker maybe a cold beach with a wind I once went swimming I'd rather a warm Greek white stones can I have that and is that Charon in the boat I can get in wobble sit down and over the dark river we go

It's reminiscent of what Churchill did with language in The Skriker and, quite contrary to scene one, it tries to fill the void with language but manages to be inadequate to it. The scene threw too many words at the emptiness and the emptiness swallowed them all. How were we to take the appearance of Greek gods and Norse gods and his babbling reflections on reincarnation? I had no idea. The void stripped these words of meaning. The first scene's about empty social patter generating a ghostly world of linguistic otherness. The second is about a world of otherness generating a ghostly world of empty language. Life and death defeat each other.

The final scene in the nursing home is a remarkable piece of naturalism. Yeah, in a Churchill play, go figure. We watch the care worker helping the man off with his pyjamas and helping him into his clothes then help him to move from the bed to the chair, whereupon she gets him back into his pyjamas and helps him back to the bed, and then repeats the whole process as the light slowly slowly fades to nothing. What do I mean by naturalism? Well it's not completely naturalistic of course because of the strange cycle of clothing changes, but what seemed to me naturalistic about it is that in the performance it simply was what it was. There was no attempt - it seemed to me - to steer the scene emotionally, from the actors. It was not degrading or demeaning. Nor was it particularly dignified or brave. It seemed to me neither happy nor melancholy. There was, as far as possible, the minimum amount of editorialising. The events on stage tried very hard not to become signs, to mean anything else. We just - as Naturalism always wanted us to do - had to observe things themselves.

One of things we were watching was the body: the actor's body as much as the character's. We were watching an old body being dressed and undressed. We saw the hair on his chest, the old veins in his legs, his rotund body, his pale skin. But again, we resisted (I resisted) turning this into some kind of ecce homo. It was just that body. But the silence was infectious. The audience was, when I saw it, very still. At one moment the old man on stage coughed bronchially; the actor I think, not the character. The way you do when someone stumbles on stage, I became intensely aware of his old bodily presence. And then two people in the audience coughed too and it seemed like we were all a bit more conscious of our bodies. Maybe even our mortality but that may be putting it a bit grandly. I felt throughout that I was intensely focused on what was actually happening on stage, which may sound weird because what else am I doing? But what was happening was intensely what was happening.

And this was, in itself, very powerful. Some critics have complained that the scene is very boring. I agree that boredom is one of the feelings I had in the scene, but I also felt fascinated, sometimes moved, sometimes weirdly baffled. I constantly found myself checking my reaction; why was I moved? There was nothing in itself moving on the stage. I fought between the desire just to watch and the desire to make meaning of the occasion. The risk of the former is to sink into boredom and shut off, to stop watching; the risk of the latter is that I start framing and reflecting and, in a certain sense, stop watching. 

And this is what I think that last scene is inviting us to do: to watch. Steadily, unusually, without panic or the protection of some attitude or belief, to watch someone near the end of their life. To submit, as some critics have done, to boredom, to suggest that the scene is too long, to wish it would end - which is a temptation - felt also like wishing the man would die. It felt to me afterwards that there was an unsettling affinity between the intolerable prolongation of a piece of theatre and an impatient attitude towards the old to which I'm sure we are all sometimes momentarily prone (why are you so slow? why are you still here? why don't you just go?). 

I found the whole experience sombre, magnificent and very moving. A profound exploration of the mystery of death written by a 77-year-old woman. Despite - in fact because of - the abundant gods in the second scene, the play seems austerely faithless and determined to stare at death's meaninglessness and emptiness and mystery. And it allows the emptiness of death to return and corrode the meaning of life itself; if the structuralists are right and words only gain their meanings through their differences from other words, then the significance of life itself is troubled by the unavailability of any stable meaning to death. And it's all beautifully captured in the play of words and silence nibbling away at each other. The language shards of the first scene evoking plenitudes of silence; the silence of the final scene being only what it is and refusing to reveal itself in language or meaning. And in the second, the words, all those words, the way the words populate the afterlife with jokes and memories and beings from all the world's religions, the words with their desperation to pin things down, their endless movement and associations, that energy they have, that restless, skittering energy, when they still do nothing to persuade us and still fail to answer the questions that trouble us so darkly about death and the end the end and the possibility of extinction a possibility we can't know can't experience can't ever experience because passing from one experience to a non-experience isn't an experience at all not at all not ever because we know this we absolutely know it as much as we know anything that after all after this after all this we know that really when it comes down to it after all this it's just one moment you're there and the next moment you're

---

NOTES

* There are political fragments in the mourners' conversations in scene one, but they just seem part of the patter, not part of the play's fundamental experience. I guess someone might think there's something being said here about care homes and the elderly but all I can say is not in this production.

** This isn't just a metaphysical device. It's also a really economical way of telling a rich story. There's a thing that playwrights and screenwriters do which - I know this from personal experience - drives some audience members mad. When characters in plays and movies end phone calls they will often end the conversation with something like "I'll see you at six" and they put the phone down. The audience members who this annoys will sometimes ask crossly why the character doesn't say 'goodbye' as real people actually would. I can only say, unhelpfully, that there's a certain nausea in writing such a dead line as 'goodbye' on a phone call. It would be a line that's only there because it ought to be, not because it deserves to be. Dramatic writing requires an economy of language in which everything said on stage is doing something. Goodbye isn't really doing anything, which is why writers don't use it. It's flat, it's dead air. Keep it moving. Churchill's methodology is a kind of extreme version of this where even the dead or unnecessary portions in individual sentences are stripped away until we get only enough to understand what they are saying.

and photos photos have you seen there are some on the table in the

It doesn't matter where the table is. What matters is the moment of intensity, the wish to share, the wish to be helpful and that's all. Then we move straight on to another line. As such in the barely ten minutes of the first scene we get an intense series of relationships, a complex life story, dramatic shifts of mood and attitude. For all its stillness and mournful quiet, it has a restless and sometimes sharply comic energy.

Why are we going to war?

The Cabinet has released the wording of the motion that tomorrow will be debated by the House of Commons. Because of the internal nightmares currently afflicting the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn has decided that he can't whip his MPs to vote against the motion. And so it looks much more likely that the motion will pass. But let's look at this motion, which sets out, in concise form, why this Government wants to take us to war.

Put another way: is this war just?

For a war to be just, the process that leads up to us going to war must be just (there must be jus ad bellum, in the jargon). And jus ad bellum is typically held to have various components.

• authority: we need to be the right people to declare war (I can't personally declare a war on ISIL; not even Chuck Norris can declare war on ISIL)
• just cause: what constitutes a good reason to go to war? most people would say that self-defence against being attacked is a good reason to go to war. What if an attack hasn't happened but is imminent, can we launch a pre-emptive attack? Some say yes, some no. But what about intervening to prevent a group attacking a third party? Can one intervene to prevent human rights violations? These cases are very controversial. While at the other end of things, revenge is generally accepted not to be a just cause and so a war pursued for that reason is illegal.
• right intention: what do you hope to achieve by the war? You can't go to war to 'punish' a rogue state, for instance. You can't go to war for narrowly national-interest reasons; you should want to restore a peace that has been violated, for instance. 
• reasonable hope: what follows from that is that you should have a reasonable expectation of success for your aims. So, in fact, even if Andorra had just cause to attack the United States, it could never have a reasonable expectation of defeating it and a war is unlikely ever to be just.
• proportionality: you should prepare to pursue a war in proportion to the threat. We would not be entitled to nuke France for banning imports of our wine, for instance. 
• last resort: you should have tried everything else.

How does the motion stand up to these tests? It has fourteen clauses and I'll take them in turn. It begins by proposing 'That this house:

notes that ISIL poses a direct threat to the United Kingdom;

This proposes that our cause for going to war is self-defence. It does seem likely that ISIL members would want to attack us. They attacked British tourists in Tunisia in June (though it's not clear whether British tourists were targeted or just Western tourists). But at least, we might say this is a statement of 'pre-emptive self-defence'. But, of course, this assumes that bombing Syria will genuinely make us safer. Who thinks the Paris attackers or the Tunisia attackers or the Russian plane bombers needed ISIL's base at Raqqa? And if self-defence is the aim, we must reasonably hope we will be less imperilled after the war. But will we be? Or will we be more of a target. A Tory line this week has been that we're under threat anyway and it can't make things work but that argument I would have to charitably describe as 'absolute bullshit'.

welcomes United Nations Security Council Resolution 2249 which determines that ISIL constitutes an ‘unprecedented threat to international peace and security’ and calls on states to take ‘all necessary measures’ to prevent terrorist acts by ISIL and to ‘eradicate the safe haven they have established over significant parts of Iraq and Syria’;

We need to be very careful about this. It is true that this is what Resolution 2249 does say, but let's also note what it doesn't say. For example, the Resolution pointedly does not invoke Chapter VII of the UN Charter that would specifically permit military action. Taken as a whole, one might well take 'all necessary measures' to mean 'all measures short of military action'. It also reaffirms that Member States 'ensure that any measures taken to combat terrorism comply with all their obligations under international law'.

further notes the clear legal basis to defend the UK and our allies in accordance with the UN Charter;

This is presumably Article 51, which states: 'Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.' Individual self-defence has been set out above. Collective self-defence is a slightly chewier notion. In David Cameron's dossier, setting out the case for war, he invoked the 'collective self-defence of Iraq' which was a principle established when Iraq, in the reconstruction of which we had, of course, been heavily involved, asked our help to defend itself against ISIL. The case in Syria is very different. We're not already involved and we haven't been asked. But clearly the Government has had different legal advice, so it should publish it.

notes that military action against Isil is only one component of a broader strategy to bring peace and stability to Syria; welcomes the renewed impetus behind the Vienna talks on a ceasefire and political settlement;

This is complicated. (a) it's quite right that war should not be the only thing (b) but should war not be the last resort rather than another thing you try alongside everything else?  and (c) it subtly changes the statement of cause: now it's not about self-defence but about bringing peace and stability to Syria. So is that our war aim?

welcomes the Government’s continuing commitment to providing humanitarian support to Syrian refugees;

This is just humanitarian window-dressing. The motion is complete without it.

underlines the importance of planning for post-conflict stabilisation and reconstruction in Syria;

This is very important. Another principle of jus ad bellum is proper planning so that the aftermath of the war is just. This jus post bellum is a very current issue in military ethics and is what spectacularly didn't happen in Iraq. What should strike anyone as extremely alarming is how entirely content-free this clause is. What planning for post-conflict stabilisation and reconstruction in Syria has there been? If, as the media are reporting, we may go to war within days, we have little time. The war will not be just if this planning has not been done. 

welcomes the Government’s continued determination to cut ISIL’s sources of finance, fighters and weapons;

Well, yeah. It's another bit of window-dressing. We're already trying to do this. It would be weird to open up their supply lines just as we go to war. It might as well say 'welcomes the Government's decision not to supply ISIL with nuclear weapons'.

notes the requests from France, the US and regional allies for UK military assistance;

Again, can you publish these requests? This could be anything from some US general saying 'jeez, we could could use a couple of your missiles' to a formal state-to-state request for assistance. Particularly worrying  is the vagueness of 'regional allies'. Which regional allies? This could not be more important for ensuring that our military action does not make the situation worse right across the Middle East. Precisely who wants us there?

acknowledges the importance of seeking to avoid civilian casualties, using the UK’s particular capabilities;

Warm words only. What will we say when the first civilian casualties are revealed? When the first hospital is hit? The first school? What actually will this clause make happen (apart from give MPs a warm feeling that they are voting for a war that only hurts the bad guys)? There's a risk, very clear in Cameron's dossier last week, of technofetishism - look at our amazing weaponry; it's so gorgeous and surgical - but it relies on good intelligence. What intelligence do we have about the situation on the ground? The existing coalition has already killed dozens (maybe hundreds) of children. Are we bringing intelligence to the conflict that they don't have? Russia's strikes, with which, like it or not, we will be associated, are much cruder and are already killing large numbers of civilians. This is an aspiration we cannot hope to meet.

notes the Government will not deploy UK troops in ground combat operations;

Okay.

welcomes the Government’s commitment to provide quarterly progress reports to the House;

Yes, how very kind of sir...

and accordingly supports Her Majesty’s Government in taking military action, specifically airstrikes, exclusively against Isil in Syria;

And that's the core of the motion. Forget all the flimflam about supporting refugees and avoiding civilians. Civilians will die. There is no doubt about that.   

and offers its wholehearted support to Her Majesty’s Armed Forces

And to Christmas and motherhood.

***

If the case for war were good, I would expect a much tighter and well-expressed motion. Instead, it's all misdirection and fine words. There are moments of horrible vagueness here. For instance, nowhere does the motion state how we will know when our war aims have been achieved.

This is because our war aims are still unclear. Is it self-defence? Is it defence of the region against ISIL? Is it to resolve the civil war in Syria?

In addition, let's note that nowhere in the motion does it repeat the claim in last week's dossier that the air strikes will liberate 70,000 moderate Syrian militia groups to swoop in and finish ISIL off. It's not there because the claim is already discredited. There's nothing like that number. They're only moderate compared to ISIL. They'll probably be fighting each other. And they're likely to be attacked by Russia. Rightly, they've scrubbed that idea. So what is actually the plan? We bomb a few military posts and then? The motion is silent.

Tony Blair slipped and slithered between war aims when justifying Iraq. When the famous 'dodgy dossier' was produced, it was all about self-defence (he had WMD and could deploy them in 45 minutes). But when the WMD turned out not to exist, Blair insisted it was a humanitarian intervention. And the reason why you can't just juggle loads of different causes for what are that there are completely different questions you ask people based on their different reasons for fighting. If we are invading x country for self-defence, then the choice of x country is unarguable. But if we're bombing x country for humanitarian reasons, why not countries y and z that are also oppressing their people? By 'flipping' your reasons, you evade proper scrutiny.

So it alarms me that even now, even at the eleventh hour, the Government seems unable to tell us why we are going into this war: a war without legal authority, without a clear just cause, with murky intentions, with no clear end or clear outcome, and with no plan for the reconstruction.

We still have time. The vote is not yet won. This motion could fail.

This is an unjust war.