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Cause for a killing
CAT'S PAW
King's Head
EIGHT senators have been assassinated in a suicide bombing outside a US government building in Washington DC. Within hours, eco-warrior copycat groups are rampaging through the city.
As chaos reigns, renowned broadcast journalist Jessica Lyons (Kosha Engler) is kidnapped by the instigators to deliver a message to the world. Set in an underground warehouse William Mastrosimone’s new play empathetically, and with frightening realism, explores the drive to kill for a cause.
The debate over the media’s complicity in the power of terrorism is well-trodden but the questions the play, written in 1984, poses are still fresh. If humanity found itself on the brink of self-annihilation would violence be justified? Admirable even? What comparisons can be drawn with terrorism and other acts of premeditated random violence?
Hostage David Darling (Richard Sandells), an Environmental Protection Agency civil servant, meekly protests that he was only carrying out orders when he allowed the contamination of Crystal River to worsen. Meanwhile, Noah Lee Margetts, as the volatile Victor, is consumed by his love for the earth. Even his lover and companion Cathy (Siri Steinmo) cannot compete.
Engler is every bit the ruthless journo, hungry for the story, unapologetically vain and devoured by a morbid curiosity for disaster. Jessica Lyons’ performance is always on the mark, portraying the consummate professional and also a woman of integrity and compassion.
Somehow Mastrosimone manages to add humour to the darkness of the hostage’s plight. Written to make you think and also to entertain, his quick-fire script and fast-paced plot makes for riveting theatre.
Until November 4
020 7226 1916
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