Conflict and the privatisation of social life

 Daniel Nelson

“I go to all my son’s hangings,” says the executioner’s mother in their small Mexican town.

What’s that got to do with a “study group” that meets regularly to discuss running Latino migrants out of their US town?

And what’s that, in turn, to do with a Chilean lecturer who’s traumatised by a student who whispers a message while trying to get her head inside the teacher’s mouth?

Chilean playwright Pablo Manzi’s 75-minute play, A Fight Against…, is made up of scenes from various countries across the Americas at various times in modern history, linked by a twisting dancer.

Manzi doesn’t spell out the meaning of it all, but it clearly concerns individuality and community, personal experience and the power of the state, conflict and the privatisation of social life.

Perhaps uncertainty is inevitable given that Manzi himself has said he is “suspended and perplexed” by recent changes in Chile, which include a hammer-like clampdown on social protest and legitimation of police violence.

In any case, it doesn’t matter, because he’s not trying to be prescriptive: he’s written an intriguing, funny, surreal, thought-provoking panorama of sketches. The violence is absurd but close.

It’s beautifully written and acted, haunting and entertaining. Not to be missed – except you can’t currently see it because in mid-December the Royal Court theatre announced its Covid-related closure until January 2022.

* A Fight Against… (Una Lucha Contra…)  resumes at the Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, SW1 on 4 January, until 22 January. Info: 7564 5000/ www.royalcourttheatre.com

Photo: Tristram Kenton