The Breath Of Life

Last week in London I saw a new play by David Hare called “The Breath of Life,” starring Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Judi Dench. Smith plays a woman who chose a profession, never married and never had children; Dench one who chose home and children, and the play is an extended conversation between these two English women of “a certain age,” and is introduced by an observation of Paul Gauguin: “Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.”

The link between them is the source of the play’s energy, and in spite of the sensitivity of a male playwright writing for women’s voices, the real strength of the play – for me - lay in the performance by two actors whose performances were so natural that one would hardly have thought they were acting, and that is, without doubt, the best acting of all, and I shall remember their work that evening for a long time.

But all of that is beside my point: Early in the play when the two characters are circling each other verbally, one of the topics which they settle on is “Americans.” A number of the lines are funny, but in the context of our present situation, the following exchange continues to resonate and disturb.

Madeleine: Their politicians always put on that tone of special shock. “This situation endangers American lives.” As if American lives were automatically different from any other kind….

Frances: But isn’t that what they believe?

Madeleine: That’s how they are. Because they’re richer than everyone else, so they have to insist their dramas are more significant.

(An example of trivial “ugly American” behavior follows, and the dialogue continues)

Madeleine:…At once the most powerful people on earth and now it appears the most fearful…

Frances: Perhaps that’s why.

Madeleine: The most risk averse. Life with all the life taken out of it.

Frances: Perhaps they just feel they have more to lose.

Madeleine: Well, they don’t.

Frances: Of course not.

Franklin D Roosevelt told us that we had nothing to fear but fear itself. Several decades later, the great political philosopher and cartoonist, Walt Kelly, observed through his character Pogo who was running for President, “We have met the enemy, and they is us.” The truth, of course, lies outside the boundaries which we have created for ourselves. Look beyond the President, the play, and Pogo, and decide what it is you see and believe.