Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. Osama The Hero | Tooth & Sinew january 21 - february 4. Equally the critical audience, seeking to deal with the level of violence and clarity presented on stage, behave stupidly in their attempts to judge, analyse or categorise the raw and open way the play presents the violence we have learned to assimilate into our lives. Look Up Any Name. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size. Osama the Hero. Lighting by Sian James Holland is specific and clear, assisting with direction around the various movements on the stage. Desc: Osama the Hero is a three act in-yer-face play by Dennis Kelly.The first two acts were staged as part of the Wild Lunch series by Paines Plough theatre company in May 2004 at London's Young Vic theatre. The harrowing Osama the Hero shows a group of neighbours taking ill-defined revenge on an odd-ball teenager in a climate of fear. Tooth and Sinew in association with bAKEHOUSE Theatre co. 1st Produced: Hampstead Theatre, 2005. Set in a post-9/11 climate of fear and mistrust, Osama The Hero takes an explosive look at a culture of violence and blame that takes root when one schoolboy sees another point of view. For this review, I relied heavily on Avital Ronell’s beautiful book, Stupidity. This is the intellectual stupidity flung in response. Posted by lisathatcher on February 1, 2017 in Theatre | Leave a comment. Designer - Patrick Connellan. Dom is hij niet. Lynden Jones forces a human face on his monster that brings Mark very close to the psyche. Osama the Hero. Paul Gilchrist . into a dance of distance and recognition with our own stupidity. Cleverly, Richard Hilliar sublimates it on behalf of our chilling numbness to the horrors of the character’s actions on stage. Log in, register or subscribe to save articles for later. I began by suggesting this is a foreign play, but fear, that so urges us to erect borders, knows none itself. ( Log Out /  Gary (Joshua McElroy), a 17 year old weirdo, thinks nothing of using the world’s most infamous terrorist as the subject of his school presentation on heroism. Box office: 020-7722 9301. (Theatre Review). For the most part then, stupidity, as properly discussed and defined is absent from the concerns of contemporary enquiry. Only raw, visceral response allows intelligence to grow in the absence of intelligence. By Stephen Dunne and reviewer. Phone Number 2. There is no access to this through categorisation. Osama the Hero by Dennis Kelly. The audience is then coerced (by what?) Oberon Books, Oct 22, 2015 - Drama - 96 pages. Osama the Hero. Learn how your comment data is processed. In the class room and on the estate, he provokes without intent. Osama was an internationalist, spreading the gospel of revolution. Osama The Hero is a deep, compounded theatre experience whose pieces come together to forge an enormous whole. And yet stupidity is everywhere; rising to prominence last year. 0 Reviews "I never know when things are funny, so what I do is I wait until someone else starts laughing and then I join in, quick as I can and hope I haven't got in too late because there's nothing worse … Osama the Hero. And bins keep blowing up when he’s around. The most thrilling aspect of this production is the journey the audience are invited to take from viewing stupidity as “a tiny calloused area of insensitivity” (Horkheimer and Adorno) from which we protect ourselves with moral reason, to a dark creative explosion of chaos we have yet been unable to wield. Read "Osama the Hero" by Dennis Kelly available from Rakuten Kobo. ( Log Out /  Explore Osama's 1. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. Denis Kelly uses it in Osama The Hero. As the audience experiences in Osama The Hero, this act is fatally stupid, in that it is an attempt to establish itself and territorialise its findings. Yes, Osama the Hero is a violent play. It is a “primitive, permanent chaos, an absence of intelligence that gives rise to intelligence.” (Stupidity – Avital Ronell) Seen in this light, the stupidity of the characters in Osama the Hero is not there to have us theorise on behaviours in terms of cause and environment, but let the audience experience a corresponding moment of creative response to the challenging behaviour displayed. Lookup Any Name - Try Today! Your support powers our independent journalism, Available for everyone, funded by readers. The characters within the play are damaged folk who behave stupidly while out of control. Kelly's early … One does get a sense of this problem inside Osama The Hero, currently showing at Kings Cross Theatre. Joshua McElroy’s beautiful performance serves as a linchpin between the stupid and what is possible, but even his Christ like sacrifices aren’t enough to save him or those around him. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Surely the pinnacle of this is the election of Donald Trump and his recalcitrant stupidity? In After the End a woman discovers she has been rescued from Armageddon by a paranoid ex-colleague with a nuclear bunker in his garden. Christine Bottomley, Tom Brooke, Ian Dunn, Michael Mears, Rachel Sanders Creative. Oberon Books, 2005 - Drama - 82 pages. The most thrilling aspect of this production is the journey the audience are invited to take from viewing stupidity as “a tiny calloused area of insensitivity” (Horkheimer and Adorno) from which we protect ourselves with moral reason, to a dark creative explosion of chaos we have yet … Osama the Hero. Change ). He provided a voice to those who felt oppression, those who lost their loved ones in the never-ending war in the Middle East and those whose rights are being trampled upon every single day by Israel’s intrusions in Palestine. Poppy Lynch forces a curious radius around Mandy that defies the temptation an audience member has to victimise her. Osama The Hero carries inside itself the question of preconceived notions, both within its narrative and its historical context. Considering what we face in the world today, this makes Osama The Hero an essential theatrical experience. © 2021 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. "It shows the way fear and prejudice work on people, how violence breeds violence. ( Log Out /  The irony is, what defines “In-Yer-Face” theatre is its ability (or rather its desire) to defy categorisation. The presumption is, any reference to genre or category or theatrical trend gives way to the imposition of an audience expectation fed by literary analysis that will serve merely to domesticate the work. The harrowing Osama the Hero shows a group of neighbours taking ill-defined revenge on an odd-ball teenager in a climate of fear. The harrowing Osama the Hero shows a group of neighbours taking ill-defined revenge on an odd-ball teenager in a climate of fear. All rights reserved. Osama the Hero had its Sydney debut in 2006 in a production featuring Xavier Samuel, now an established screen actor (Fury, Love and Friendship). A visceral rollercoaster of a play by one of Britain’s hottest writers. This and more is available to be digested in this excellent production of Osama The Hero currently showing at Kings Cross Theatre. For a thinker, such as Schelling, stupidity is a primal drive at the origin of being. 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