The Lady of Burmaacting an exile:

“The Olympics have meant that the Tibetan freedom movement will take centre-stage, and that’s right and proper, but the fact is, Burma hasn’t gone away and its people are in an absolutely dire situation”

Richard Shannon, director of The Lady of Burma

International news is not a business of sentiment or loyalty. A particular violent eruption or controversial legislation can catapult a political crisis into the harsh glare of the world’s cameras, but only for as long as it remains unpredictable. The inevitable, daily preference of the stale conflict for the fresh creates a tendency among Western readerships to assume that an unreported nation is a happy one. Such is the situation for the ‘junta’ in Burma; a military government which has been in oppressive occupation of the country in various guises since 1988. Richard Shannon, writer and director of the Red Fighting Peacock’s production of The Lady of Burma, explains the country’s brief moment of global exposure last year: “The monks took to the streets and were shot and beaten up, and a Japanese journalist was shot dead in front of the world’s cameras: I think everyone sat up and took note”. It is the impact of this non-violent protest against the regime by 20,000 Buddhist monks that Shannon wishes to capitalise on with his one-woman theatrical portrait of Burma’s most famous dissenting voice: former head of the Burmese NLD (National League for Democracy) and current political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi.

Nobel Peace Prize winner and daughter of the man who founded Burma’s independence (General Aung San), Suu Kyi’s heroic attempt to establish a stable democratic system in the country and her subsequent (and ongoing) exile as a result may not be familiar to everyone, but Shannon and his sole star, England-born Liana Mau Tan Gould, relish the challenge to educate and entertain. As Gould explains: “it’s an emotional play…and a human story. It’s not just about politics. It’s always refreshing, when coming to the theatre, to walk out the door and think ‘gosh, we’re lucky to be in the situation we’re in’…If we can do that, we’ve done a lot”. This balancing act between the informative and the dramatic determines the success or failure of the production. However – as Gould acknowledges – the audience are complicit in the theatrical experiment: “The script is

wonderfully written but it’s also fairly fast-paced and there’s a lot of mentions of the political parties…You really do have to listen, if you’re not in the mood for something that needs a bit of concentration, then it’s a waste of energy. It’s not gonna be cabaret!”.

Writer/director Richard Shannon was well aware of these dangers: not only of creating a dry, factual play, but also of creating a blinkered pro-Suu Kyi political diatribe: “I knew that if I just produced a piece of propaganda, it would not work…people don’t need to be preached at. I hope what I’ve produced is a fairly complex and, I hope, sophisticated portrait of a human being…The problem with Suu Kyi is she presents such a polished political front; she seems to be so in control, and that’s not going to move people, so I hope what I’ve tried to do is confront her pain, her contradictions as a human being”. Luckily, Shannon’s intense research revealed that Suu Kyi’s character is not only definable enough to produce a winning theatrical piece, but it also lends itself very well to the production’s sole actress playing many

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by Dan Steadman

parts: “[Suu Kyi is] actually a good mimic and she has a great sense of humour, so that gave me permission to allow her to play other characters like the generals, the gardener and her mother”. The play is further humanised by the extensive use of her own words, as Shannon explains: “I suppose what I wanted to do was to get under her skin as much as possible and capture her tone of voice. I definitely wanted to try and make the play be based substantially on what she actually said, so a lot of it is using her words, shaped into a drama”. However, what must eventually decide the strength of the piece is Liana Gould’s performance, and she has received the highest form of patronage from members of Suu Kyi’s English family (Suu Kyi married British academic Michael Aris in 1972 whilst studying at Oxford; he passed away in 1999): “When we did it at the Old Vic, they were almost in tears” Gould relates, “there was one stage where Michael’s sister said there were elements of you there that made us think ‘my goodness, that’s Suu Kyi’. She just couldn’t believe it; there were just certain looks, certain poises, certain things I would do”.

Political activism and awareness are difficult ends to manufacture artificially through the theatrical medium, but the production’s association with explicitly political organisations gives it a valid significance as protest theatre. It was premiered at the Old Vic two years ago in aid of the Burma Campaign UK and has maintained its close association with the charity. Clearly this alliance has had a significant effect on the bias of the play’s politics, but Shannon is unapologetic in his conviction: “As far as being even handed as far as the regime is concerned, I’m afraid I’ve told the story from her [Suu Kyi’s] perspective, I haven’t told it from the generals’ perspective...Hopefully the audience can judge but I’m not going to pretend it’s an even-handed piece”. However, the director’s firsthand contact with the effects of the junta lends his passion a plain credibility: “The reality is that the poverty is extreme, the fuel prices have made life incredibly difficult and people hate the regime because they have attacked the most sacred symbol of Burmese spiritual life – the monks”.

So, as the relentless surge of mass media continues – as it always will – it is left to the arts to remind us of those unresolved conflicts and their human cost, an ideal which Richard Shannon is unafraid to aspire to: “The Olympics have meant that the Tibetan freedom movement will take centre-stage, and that’s right and proper, but the fact is, Burma hasn’t gone away and the people are in an absolutely dire situation and I’m hoping that the play will do just a little towards keeping Burma in the public eye”. As for Suu Kyi, her resolute and non-violent protest will undoubtedly continue, and the furious passion with which Liana Gould interprets her tragic life will hopefully contribute towards ensuring she is not forgotten: “I’ll be proud of this one…always, because it means so much; it’s so special, it’s a very special play and I feel very, very privileged to be playing the part”.

The Lady of Burma plays at the Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury on 15th May, then nationwide.

Richard Shannon

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