Stoning Mary / Seven Jewish Children

Stoning Mary by Debbie Tucker Green

& Seven Jewish Children by Caryl Churchill

Our current world is frantically searching for a vaccine to a deadly virus, albeit with a much smaller infection rate than when Debbie Tucker Green wrote ‘Stoning Mary’. Between 2005 – 2012 the number of HIV positive people receiving anti-retroviral treatment, rose from 1 million to 7.1 million. An increase of 805% and a financial boom for the drug industry. Currently, the World Health Organisation’s website has a generic image of a black African mother and child being handed a leaflet under the title ‘The Push for a Covid-19 Vaccine’. Within certain corners of the medical profession and beyond, there is still the opinion that black Africans cannot help themselves and that Africa should be used as a testing ground for drug companies. This year a leading doctor from an ICU unit in Paris suggested that trials to see if a tuberculosis vaccine would be effective against coronavirus should be carried out in Africa and not Europe. Debbie Tucker Green’s play reverses this perception and makes us question our own unconscious bias. Are we less invested in a character’s plight when they are not white?

Caryl Churchill has said she sees Seven Jewish Children as a political event. It was written as a response to Israel’s 2008 – 2009 military strike on Gaza. As a company we found that almost every single line refers to a significant historical occurrence that could not be ignored. During rehearsals, we discovered the rich political complexities of the piece and approached those complexities from a non-partisan perspective. I wanted to explore the symbolism of ‘fire’ and ‘the circle’. During the Hanukkah festival, fire is a central theme. The circle symbolizes eternity, and that is the reason for the Torah being read in a continuous cycle, therefore the Torah is eternal. Fire has engulfed the Israeli/Palestinian conflict for quite some time and the circle of violence seems eternal. This play identifies the huge question marks hovering over future generations on both sides. The protection, loss and education of our children links both pieces. Whatever our opinions of both plays… they make us sit up and listen. Thanks to Amy Yardley for her inspirational design, David Zoob for the moving talk about his family history through the Russian pogroms, and his experiences of the Palestinian refugee camps. Also, thanks to David Horovitch for talking to me about his experiences being part of the groundbreaking original Royal Court production of Seven Jewish Children. Gary Pillai, Director