UNITED KINGDOM: EDINBURGH FESTIVAL PERFORMERS INCLUDING SUSAN SARANDON AND TIM ROBBINS CONSIDER THEIR RESPONSES TO 9/11 TERROR ATTACKS ON USA

Record ID: 549039

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: EDINBURGH FESTIVAL PERFORMERS INCLUDING SUSAN SARANDON AND TIM ROBBINS CONSIDER THEIR RESPONSES TO 9/11 TERROR ATTACKS ON USA
  • Date: 14th August 2002
  • Summary: SCU (SOUNDBITE) (English) CHRIS GREEN SAYING "It's interesting while we've been doing the show up in Edinburgh the Number 1 album in America is this guy called Toby Keith, who with his song 'Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue', goes ten times further than Tina does in any of the songs in the show at being really aggressive towards Afghanistan and saying you know, ' We lit up the sky like the fourth of July' - really, really strong sentiments. And that's the Number 1 album, not in the country charts but all the charts in America."
  • Embargoed: 29th August 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, UK
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVAT09E1MAAK9PDDUYE8R3WHG0A
  • Story Text: As they prepare to take their staged reading of Anne Nelson's The Guys to Dublin, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins explain why they needed to explore September 11th on the stage. The 56th Edinburgh Fringe Festival is home to a host of productions attempting to explore - through drama and humour - the attack on the World Trade Centre.
    As the anniversary to September 11th approaches, actors, musicians and comedians are exploring the feelings that the attack unleashed. Grief, fear, anger, shock... emotions the stage is made for so not surprisingly, the 56th Edinburgh Fringe Festival has been dominated by the event.
    Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins were so compelled to perform their interpretation of Anne Nelson's The Guys that Robbins personally called the director of the fringe festival, Paul Gudgin, to request a venue for the staged reading. Based on a true story, Nelson's play relates a journalist's experience as she attempts to arm a grieving fireman with the words he needs to write eulogies to eight of his men. Critics have hailed it as a deeply personal insight into America's working class figures who were elevated to the status of hero.
    "It's not every American's version of what happened" said Sarandon. "There's things within the play that ring very true to everybody, asking are you ok - that kind of thing my kids mentioned, you know 'when will we stop asking if everyone's ok?"
    Almost a year has passed and still New Yorkers are being hounded with the question. The tragic event has lent itself to sensationalism, and documentaries all over the USA are searching for celebrities to reveal where they were on that day and how they feel a year on. "Just like I didn't feel right about taking pictures when I was down there helping I didn't feel right talking about it, I felt if there was one thing that I'd like to make a vow about is that this shows us that there's something bigger that we should be talking about and I don't want to talk about where I was on that day, I'm just not interested in doing that, so I've said a blanket no to all of the documentaries and 'where are we now' shows that have come from all the country trying to get New Yorkers to speak about what was going on because for me personally it just doesn't feel right."
    Sarandon's husband agrees that a certain degree of protection needs to be afforded, indeed, he's not sure that plays exploring the attacks are even ready for the stage. "I think that it is too early. Perspective is needed before you really create a metaphorical piece on this."
    But drama graduates Luke Rosen and Philip Easley have done just that. With their play 'Jumpers' they create a world set in New York city, spring 2003. Rosen's character Joe is hounded by nightmares, his life is haunted by the day he went out to buy some soap and instead was stopped in his tracks by screaming, flames and people jumping from the twin towers.
    Unlike some of the sentimental personal outpourings that September 11th has inspired, 'Jumpers' explores the patriotism that the attacks unleashed on the American people. "There's no doubt that people have different feelings now. I don't think that everyone is ready to sign up for the army but people definitely have seen that, have felt even minutely about that I think." Easley's character Don reveals the ugly colours patriotism can take, in his aggressive need to take up arms and literally take over the world if it means America will be protected from such an event happening again.
    It's one of the areas English drag queen Chris Green explores in his show 'Tina C's Twin Towers Tribute'. The show sparked huge controversy long before the curtain went up, following the launch of a promotional poster that reveals Tina C striding the Manhattan skyline with her own twin towers.
    But Tina C actually has a higher purpose - to poke fun at the number of artists in the recording industry who have used September 11th as a key to their success. Hastily-penned 9/11 songs were scrambled together for the Country Music Awards which took place ten days after the event. And in Nashville a year on, the stakes are even higher as artists compete for the number one spot on the coming anniversary.
    Green says that he is using his alter ego Tina C to explore "the sort of mass culture celebration of grief". But it's unlikely his plan - to perform a live show in New York on the coming anniversary - will go ahead. 'Kleenex To The World' is perhaps not the song viewers will want to hear. Bruce Springsteen may provide a more suitable soundtrack. His Elegy album is generally acknowledged to be at the higher end of the September 11-inspired art.
    No doubt this coming September 11 will reveal a range of artistic endeavours as broadcasters and theatres around the world attempt to commemorate the event.
    --
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