Stuff Happens is a play by David Hare, written in response to the Iraq War. Hare describes it as "a history play" that deals with recent history. The title is inspired by Donald Rumsfeld's response to widespread looting in Baghdad: "Stuff happens and it’s untidy, and freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.” (April 11, 2003)
The play presents a mix of viewpoints, including arguments for and against the attack on Iraq. It mixes verbatim re-creations of real speeches, meetings, press conferences and fictionalized versions of private meetings between members of the Bush and Blair administrations. The play also includes international figures such as Hans Blix and Dominique de Villepin. An ensemble cast plays over 40 roles during the 3-hour play, although the actors playing the principals—Bush, Rice, Powell—play only one role.
In 2020, Andy Propst of Time Out dubbed Stuff Happens "one of the most impressive political dramas to emerge in recent memory" and ranked it the 30th greatest play of all time.
Characters
{| class="wikitable"
|George W. Bush
|President of the United States
|-
|Dick Cheney
|Vice-President of the United States
|-
|Donald Rumsfeld
|American Secretary of Defense
|-
|Colin Powell
|Secretary of State
|-
|Condoleezza Rice
|National Security Advisor
|-
|Paul Wolfowitz
|Deputy Secretary of Defense
|-
|Tony Blair
|Prime Minister of United Kingdom
|-
|Hans Blix
|Executive Chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission
|-
|George Tenet
|Director of Central Intelligence
|-
|Laura Bush
|First Lady of the United States
|-
|Jack Straw
|Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
|-
|Jonathon Powell
|Downing Street Chief of Staff
|-
|Alastair Campbell
|Downing Street Director of Communications and Strategy
|-
|Michael Gerson
|White House Director of Speechwriting
|-
|Saddam Hussein
|President of Iraq
|-
|David Manning
|UK Permanent Representative on the North Atlantic Council/ British Ambassador to the United States
|-
|Sir Richard Dearlove
|Head of the British Secret Intelligence Service
|-
|John Negroponte
|United States Ambassador to the United Nations
|-
|Jeremy Greenstock
|Chairman of the Security Council's Counter-Terrorism Committee
|-
|Igor Ivanov
|Foreign minister of Russia
|-
|Sergey Lavrov
|Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations
|-
|Dominique De Villepin
|Minister of Foreign Affairs
|-
|Jean-David Levitte
|Ambassador of France to the United States
|-
|John McCain
|Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee
|-
|Mohamed ElBaradei
|Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency
|-
|Dan Bartlett
|Head of the White House Communications Team
|-
|Jacques Chirac
|President of France
|-
|Robin Cook
|Leader of the House of Commons
|-
|Ari Fleischer
|White House Press Secretary
|-
|Jeremy Paxman
|British Journalist
|}
Plot and Style
David Hare's Stuff Happens is a play about the events that led up to the 2003 Iraq War. The play focuses on the diplomatic side of the war. The play begins at George Bush's election in November 2000 and ends around April 2004. Parts of the dialogue are direct quotes from the characters' real-world counterparts. The play is about real people and real events that had occurred. Hare states that "the events within [the play] have been authenticated from multiple sources, both private and public." The events during the play are as follows:
<u>Act One-</u>
Scene 1 through 3: These scenes serve as an introduction to the play and the characters. Scene 3 focuses specifically on background information on the main characters before the plot begins. Director Daniel Sullivan chose a small venue at the Newman Theater at the Public. This created an atmosphere such “as if the audience too is participating in this re-creation of recent events”. The production won the 2006 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Ensemble; 2006 Outer Critics Circle Award, Outstanding Off-Broadway Play; and 2005-2006 OBIE Awards for Performance, Peter Francis James, Performance, Byron Jennings and Direction, Daniel Sullivan. Directed by David Hare, the production featured Alex Jennings returning to the role of George W. Bush, Julian Sands returning as Tony Blair and Bill Nighy as the Narrator.
References
- Kevin De Ornellas, "Stuff Happens". In Gabrielle H. Cody and Evert Sprinchorn, eds, The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, 2 volumes (Columbia University Press, 2007), volume 2, p. 1300. .
External links
- Stuff Happens – original London production at the Olivier Theatre of the National Theatre (September–December 2004)
- Stuff Happens – New York production by The Public Theater (March 28, 2006 – June 25, 2006)
- , review in the Oxonian Review