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BUDDING playwright James Seawel has scripted a political satire themed on the craziness of the American political system which he hopes will be snapped up by theatres back home in the US.
As the world watches in awe as Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and his Democratic archrival Hillary Clinton battle it out for the White House, the challenge is whether anything made-up can be as riveting, or as bizarre, as the real thing.
Can the use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticise people’s stupidity or vices, be as funny as contemporary politics?
“Beyond the technical issues, writing a satire is hard work when living in an age where people seem to be collectively losing their minds,” admitted James, 36, who lives with his wife, Stephanie, in Juffair between American Alley and the Grand Mosque, which he finds to be ‘a fitting metaphor’ for their lives as expats living in the kingdom.
He recently called in his friends from the Manama Theatre Club to stage a social night ‘table reading’ of the piece entitled Six Flags Over Jesus at its base at the British Club of Bahrain and welcomed audience participation and criticism as he fine tunes the work.
The storyline centres on the Pastor Johnny Blowdry who in the middle of a mid-life crisis marries a younger blonde former stripper and has a vision to ‘take Texas back to the Lord’ and do anything within his power to stop Clinton from becoming President.
The play has a large cast of 14 – seven women and seven men – and the mixed bag of characters includes a businessman, a reality TV star, a gun-lover, a millionaire entrepreneur, a radio chat show host and even a gay guy looking to be ‘cured’.
James, an educational consultant and counsellor, from the US state of Arkansas, is on the third of an annual six-month-long stint in Bahrain. “Part of me has been writing this play my entire life, but actually putting fingers on keyboard with this subject and these specific characters in mind happened on my first visit to Bahrain,” he said.
“At the time, I was a bachelor living the good life at the Gulf Hotel. After work I had nothing but time on my hands. I was journalling about my time on the island and writing the early drafts of my stage play. In all, the play has taken me three years to write, but the play we read is hardly the same play as it was in 2014.
“Reading my daily Facebook newsfeed makes me a bit crazy. Suddenly, people who cut hair become experts on social policy and people who make social policy turn into experts on theology, and it appears as if none of them stop to consider the possibility that they may be wrong.
“Social media is replete with the lowest form of human ‘knowledge’ – opinion. I spend too much time fact-checking and have found that most of my friends and online acquaintances, as well as myself, are completely full of complete nonsense which we pass off as fact, not because it’s true but because we feel it so strongly.
“This play, a complete farce, is nothing more than a bunch of made-up characters who have more opinions than facts, more passion than sense and more desire to yell than listen. It’s true of my culture of origin, but the more I travel the more I realise it is all cultures.”
Although he says he tries to avoid actually being on the stage himself, he did win a contest that Tales From The South in Little Rock, Arkansas, hosted, and was selected to read his story, Soul Food, before a live audience at the Starving Artist Café.
“Otherwise, I write tons of stories I either delete, put in a folder, or occasionally share with friends and family on Facebook,” he said. “Six Flags Over Jesus is my most extensive work. I have folders full of smaller projects and abandoned projects.
“This is not my only stage play, but it’s the only one that is finished. And, it’s premature to say it’s finished as I received some excellent insights and feedback from the cast and audience that I am considering as I promote the script to theatres.
“At some point my wife is going to place a moratorium on how much more time I can spend with the script. There are seven women in the play, a couple of whom she doesn’t trust!”
Stephanie got tired of being what she called ‘a stay-at-hotel wife’ and whilst looking for an opportunity to get involved on the island, found the Manama Theatre Club (MTC). It is a community of amateur drama enthusiasts hailing from different parts of the world who love staging fun productions throughout the year.
Drawn by its charity work and, in particular, its support for the Feed the Need initiative, she started by helping out with the children’s acting workshops, then worked backstage at the British Club during MTC’s production of Move Over Mrs Markham.
By this point, the couple had made friends with the actors, who encouraged Stephanie into taking part in improvisational acting with them at Café Amsterdam and at the British Club.
James, meanwhile, has been continuing his endeavours to fine-tune his play and the recent session has proved helpful. “Part of my purpose for the reading was to see how long the play would run – it ended up being more than two hours,” he said.
And, as for the intriguing true life battle for power, he said: “I shouldn’t comment about the US presidential election from overseas. I don’t know who will be in the White House next year, but I’m sure she’ll do a great job.”
One club was overheard whilst exiting the club suggesting that a satire should be written about British politics too.
“Perhaps a farce would work,” came the reply. “But we’ll have to wait a tad to find out who the central characters will be.”
