Hampstead Theatre’s #aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei was originally performed in 2013, but returns as a part of their At Home series — a collection of plays released online for a limited time during quarantine. The two-hour play delivers precisely what the title states and not much more.
The performance begins with people clustered around a box in the middle of the stage. For fifteen minutes, the crowd takes pictures of and around the box. The action is only broken when a bewildered man wanders onto the stage, but he’s no stranger to the crowd. They immediately begin taking photos with him and getting his autograph. It’s soon evident that this is the acclaimed Ai Weiwei (played by Benedict Wong). A few moments after his introduction, we see him arrested at an airport, on his way to Beijing. The reason given is that his travel “could damage state security” and we don’t discover the real reason for his arrest until the performance is an hour and thirty minutes in.
After Ai Weiwei is arrested, the box transforms into his own personal prison, where he is routinely interrogated for weeks. And while this sounds compelling, not a lot happens. Ai Weiwei’s time is spent talking to us or staring out into space. His prison stay seems long and mundane. When he’s not staring off or talking to us, he’s being interrogated, which includes a lot of yelling and repetition. This makes sense, being that it is an interrogation, but as a piece of theatre, it easily loses the audience.
At the beginning of Act II, Ai Weiwei is transferred to another holding cell, where there is even more yelling from the interrogators and guards. However, this time, we do learn a bit about the two young guards who are monitoring Ai Weiwei. We learn that they are young, hate America, and are not enjoying their time in the Chinese military. Soon after we get a glimpse into their lives, they leave, never to be heard of again. It’s evident that Ai Weiwei is not only the driving force of this play, but the only character that truly has an arc. Everyone else are merely set dressings. However, this is not to say that every moment of the performance is dry. Director James Macdonald inserts several hilarious moments into the piece. Even characters that we don’t hear much from, like stenographer from both Act I and II, has some great silent moments. And Benedict Wong is a powerhouse performer; he is a joy to watch and does his best with the given material. There are also two other characters, A (played by David Tse) and B (played by Junix Inocian) who have an interesting story.
A and B enter at the end of Act I and in the middle of Act II. It’s hard to say exactly who they are, but they represent high level political officials. When we first meet them, B desperately wants permission from A to have Ai Weiwei beaten into a confession of his crimes — of which we still do not know — but A tells him to break his spirit instead. And the constant yelling and interrogation does have an effect on Ai Weiwei, but not enough to get a false confession out of him. When we are reintroduced to A and B, A tells B that they cannot beat him, as Ai Weiwei’s father is loved by their leader and that imprisoning Ai Weiwei might incite protest and backlash from other countries. B acquiesces and they both agree to claim that tax evasion was the reason why they had him arrested. Back in the holding cell, Ai Weiwei learns that his true crime was writing a blog criticizing China, but that instead of sending him to prison for up to eleven years for speaking freely, he can leave if he admits to tax evasion, which he does. The performance ends with Ai Weiwei performing his notorious, Dropping A Han Dynasty Urn, making the ending image a powerful one.
Reviewer - Rebecca Tessier
on - 2/5/20
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