Dramatist Michael Mears recently attended a meeting of states party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a CND delegate. He was also in New York to perform a run of his play, ‘The Mistake’. Here he reports back on his trip.
Towards the end of our second week of performances here in New York, the temperature outside shoots up into the high 70s and wouldn’t you know it, the air con in the theatre develops a fault. We have three weekend shows and it can’t be fixed till Monday. I’m not so concerned for myself, but for the audiences – full houses in a small theatre where they are watching a concentrated serious drama for 80 plus minutes with no interval.
Amazingly, no-one leaves, no-one faints, though there’s a fair amount of programme flapping. Riko and I are drenched in sweat and by the end of the two Saturday shows I’m feeling pretty spent. We have a busy show the next day too, Sunday afternoon, and the heat persists. It’s astonishing that the audience stays with us, comes with us all the way on our journey into the Hiroshima ‘heart of darkness’ – saving their complaints until afterwards for the front of house managers.
On Sunday evening, having nothing planned, I am good for nothing anyway. I lie on my bed, at the downtown guest house where I’m staying, completely flaked out, wondering if I’m suffering from heat exhaustion. I compose urgent emails to the theatre director and manager.
Next day, Monday May 4th, is a day off, and of course, it tips down with rain! Not until I’ve walked some of the wonderful, leafy High-Line, though; after which I wend my way to Little Italy – where the words of ‘Volare’ are spelled out in little lights, strung across the streets. I dive into a recommended restaurant, Zia Maria, and have a delicious lunch while watching the rain bucketing down outside. At least the temperature is cooler.’
That evening I head to where Riko is staying – in a vast, wonderful house owned by Hungarian photographer, Clara, who has lived there for 40 plus years. In her large, artefact-filled ground floor apartment she hosts occasional artistic salons – and tonight a young Hungarian pianist, Alexandra Balog, will give a recital on Clara’s aging Steinway (complete with squeaking pedal) prior to her Carnegie Hall debut in a few days time. Riko and I feel privileged to have been invited.
I also relish the opportunity to spend some time inside a New York City home. Alexandra rises to the challenge of the aforementioned squeaking pedal, not allowing it to affect her gorgeous rendition of Schubert’s B flat major piano sonata.
Next day I head back to the United Nations where, before attending a session, I witness more wonderful art – some Chagall windows (his stained glass is always so gorgeous); and the nearby specially designed ‘Meditation Room’. I go in and sit in the semi-darkness, pondering the fate of the world as I contemplate the mesmerising ‘stone’ in the centre of the room and the artwork on the wall behind. I reflect that on the other side of ‘the pond’ the Cardinals in Rome will this week be deciding who the next Pope will be. Someone as committed to peace as Pope Francis was, hopefully.
When I go to the theatre that evening I anxiously walk into the space but…phew! – the air con is working again. What a relief.
Last week at the UN I heard and met some amazing women. But there are some inspiring men working in the peace movement too. That Tuesday evening Seth Shelden comes to see the play.
Seth is the United Nations liaison for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which was instrumental in establishing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017. Seth has much legal expertise and speaks to governments, advocating implementation of the Treaty, also urging them to sign up to the treaty being discussed this week – on nuclear non-proliferation. Seth grew up in Brooklyn believing everything he was told about the end of WW2 and how the atomic bombs had brought the war to an end and saved so many lives. (A statement which is made but strongly disputed in my play.)
At the early age of 12, however, he came across John Hersey’s seminal book, ‘Hiroshima’, a brilliantly-written account of six survivors, and this proved to be a turning point in Seth’s young life, motivating everything he has done since for the cause of peace and to ensure these appalling weapons are never used again.
I’m reminded by his story of how profound an effect a book can have on a person’s life – even a short 120-page book (still published by Penguin and which I cannot recommend highly enough).
After the performance, Seth and I chat in the bar, and I’m surprised when he tells me that this theatre brings back memories for him – of when he had a critical success there.
‘So you’re an actor, too?’ I ask.
‘Well, not currently. My focus is almost totally on getting rid of these awful weapons – preventing any more catastrophes like the ones depicted in your play.’
I’m curious about his acting career. ‘What else have you done, what other roles have you enjoyed?’
‘Well, I played Harpo Marx off-Broadway in ‘I’ll Say She Is’ – the first revival of a lost Marx Brothers musical.’ Looking at Seth, I can see it – see how his looks and persona would suit the role of Harpo down to the ground. But as he has made clear to me, his main focus now is not on clowning and spreading laughter but on prohibiting the spread of nuclear weapons.
With memories of the Marx Brothers now in my mind, quotes from Groucho Marx inevitably surface. ‘Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms!’
After the performance there are other people to talk to. A friend of our London-based voice coach Kate Godfrey introduces himself to me. He found The Mistake very moving, but says his partner, who is Japanese, couldn’t join him this evening – and in any case she wouldn’t have been able to face the play as it would have been too painful for her. The fact being that her mother was a survivor of the second atomic bombing on Nagasaki.
Next morning I’m back at the UN and who should I bump into but Seth. We sit and have a chance of a longer chat. I tell him about some of the side events I’ve attended.
‘Have you been into the main conference discussions ?’ he asks.
I say no, as they seem to be flagged up as ‘closed sessions’.
But Seth says I should just slip in anyway, to get a sense of how it all works.
So I do. All the nations of the world each allotted a desk; numbers of them empty; a chairperson and others seated at the front; large screens on which the current speaker can be seen – who happens to be the delegate from the United Kingdom. Asking if in paragraph X certain words can be altered to other words, less demanding words. And in another paragraph could this word be changed to that word. I later hear the Chinese delegate asking if the word ‘voluntary’ could be inserted. These are two of the nine nuclear-weapon states, of course. Offering their caveats and fudges. And so it goes on. Endless discussions about wording. Important, of course, when putting together a treaty. But seemingly so devoid of the passion I’ve witnessed in those speaking at the side events. Like Mary Dickson and Mitchie Takeuchi last week. People who have directly experienced the consequences of these weapons.
I would have liked the chance to speak to the UK delegate, to invite him to the play. But I’d have been hard-pressed not to slip into Groucho Marx, saying something like, ‘I never forget a face. But in your case I’ll make an exception.’
That night after the play, an elderly man approaches me saying his father loaded the atomic bomb on the Enola Gay.
‘Really? Your father?’ I ask. ‘Yes, and I have his diaries. I can let you have a look at them as they might be useful for your research.’ People are often offering me books, articles, stories, saying they might be useful for my research. But the play is written and is making its impact. And frankly, I don’t have the time – or the inclination- to take on lots more research and rewriting.
(A not unrelated aspect of being a writer is that people are always offering ideas for plays. Someone once said to me that I should write a play about accountants. To which I replied, ‘Tell you what, who don’t YOU write a play about accountants?)
Thursday is my final visit to the UN. I attend a side event on the role of faith leaders in opposing nuclear weapons. But the speakers delay the start as they say the announcement of the new Pope is about to be made any moment now.
We all listen and watch as the first ever American is chosen as Pope, taking the name Pope Leo the 14th; a man who apparently has a highly developed social conscience and is not at all enamoured of the man currently enthroned in the White House. The man who just days before disrespectfully posted images of himself as Pope.
The session begins and speaker after speaker talks with great passion and intelligence about the immorality of nuclear weapons, not dilly-dallying about wording but cutting through to the core of the issue.
Afterwards I head to the theatre, preparing to portray another Leo who had a highly-developed social conscience – Leo Szilard, nuclear physicist.
Next day, Friday, is the last day of the deliberations at the UN and the draft treaty will be finalised and agreed upon. I won’t be able to attend as I have numerous other things to do – including having a massage for the serious neck and back tension I’ve developed during the tour. I learned that one of the Japanese members of our audience the other night is a massage therapist in the city, and as she had a slot free today, I decided to book it – especially as she would have seen just how physical the show is and what demands I make on my body during it. The massage is wonderful. Long overdue and deeply relaxing. Jojoba oil and citrus and rose oils. Serene cool jazz music. I ‘drop off’ several times. Afterwards I float towards the theatre on a cloud of relaxation where I briefly check my emails.
There’s news from Seth, at the UN… ‘Following two weeks of meetings that ended (as anticipated) without the adoption of an outcome document, the discussions illustrated a clear divide between the majority of countries, who are actively working towards nuclear disarmament, and the rest. Pro-nuclear weapons states have demonstrated a profound lack of urgency in the face of increasingly urgent conditions.’
I feel some of the afternoon’s relaxation draining from my body with this news, and words from Harpo’s brother Groucho again spring to mind…’Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.’ Or perhaps, feeling that the necessity to purge the world of these weapons would surely be something that everyone can agree with, I recall Groucho saying, ‘A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five!’
It’s now May 11th and we have arrived at the final performance of The Mistake on this US tour – which happens to take place on Mother’s Day…adding poignancy to the play every time Shigeko mentions her mother, desperately searching for her, plaintively calling her name until she ultimately realises the truth. Her mother had not survived the catastrophe.
We reach the last pages of the play and I say Leo’s final lines – the last lines I will speak onstage in New York this year – the words seeming to mean even more in the light of Friday’s failures at the UN – and I feel these words burning into the hearts of every audience member sitting in front or me – as I have felt them do so during this whole US tour – words with such an acute resonance for American audiences right now.
I look into the eyes of each person sitting in front of me as I declare, as Leo Szilard, ‘However desperate things may seem, we have to maintain, we have to believe, in a narrow margin of hope.’