Triumph, which has just opened at London’s Almeida theatre, is Caryl Churchill’s latest piece of explosive minimalism. Running at just 20 minutes, it skewers contemporary barbarism without mentioning the names of Trump, Putin or any of the other supposedly strong national leaders. It works through historical analogy and is a reminder that Churchill – while “always ahead of the game” in the words of the play’s director, James Macdonald – has in recent years developed a form of elliptical drama for which the apt word might be compressionism.
At the heart of Churchill’s new play is an edgy romance between a male journalist and a female press officer who dons a blond wig for her screen appearances and who is a vigorous apologist for a cruel, vindictive, narcissistic emperor. At first she merrily trumpets his more acceptable achievements: pearls imported from Britain, gold from the temples of Gaul, statues erected to his own glory. But through her lover she learns of the monstrosities of the regime she represents – such as prisoners trapped in claustrophobic cages and sawn in half – and reveals the truth on camera.
Expecting retribution, she is instead showered with praise as the ratings rocket and she is told: “The people like a strong emperor.” Standing at a lectern backed by imperial purple and speaking in an overtly American accent, Kate O’Flynn shows perfectly the way the authentic human being emerges from the glamorised robot who speaks for power: in James Macdonald’s production she even looks uncannily like the most recent and short-lived White House incumbent, Katie Zacharia. So what is Churchill up to? Since all the crimes perpetrated by the emperor are drawn from Suetonius’s The Twelve Caesars, it is clear that a parallel is being drawn between then and now.
Two examples prove the point. When Triumph’s emperor reminds his wife that he has the power of life and death over her, it is a direct echo of Caligula’s threat to a spouse that “This beautiful throat will be cut whenever I please”. At another point a fisherman, who has terrified the emperor by presenting him with a giant mullet, finds his face rubbed in it.
Having foolishly thanked heaven that it wasn’t a crab, he then finds the emperor ensuring that his features are badly scarred by a giant crustacean: a slice of whimsical sadism from the reign of Tiberius. Lest anyone think that Churchill is overstating the case by linking Roman and contemporary decadence, one has only to look at recent events. We live in a world where the idea of livestreaming a military execution, although now abandoned, was originally endorsed by President Trump and his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth.
We have also seen ICE agents shooting nonviolent protesters, while fishermen in the Caribbean have been killed by American troops on the totally unproved grounds that they were drug smugglers. Churchill’s point in Triumph is that today governments in the western world not only commit acts of extreme brutality: they also attempt to massage them through skilled media presentation. All this is conveyed in a short, sharp shock of a play that is proof of Churchill’s restless experimentalism.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
