A Real Humane Person Who Cares And All That by Adam Brace is the best piece of new writing that I have seen on the Fringe. Cleverly presented with a jumping narrative, and wittily critical of personal and social morals, there is not one word within this play which is superfluous, not one statement without full and total exploration.
Three British writers travel to an unspecified, Middle Eastern/Central Asian territory and get captured by a local War Lord whilst photographing an execution. What unfolds is the British Embassys response, in a fragmented but brilliantly constructed argument on what it constitutes to be a real humane person who cares and all that. This argument is never implicitly stated, but Braces disdain for the puffed up safety of British morals is obvious; sometimes you need to be honest and break through the crap.
Three perspectives of this event are shown and three actors play one character in each take, the writers, the embassy workers and the power brokers. Dan McGowan, Ben Smith and Tiffany Wood handle their multiple roles with aplomb, never falling into the trap of making each person a lazy caricature whilst subtly drawing an outline around each character they play. The duplication of roles is an interesting choice and helps the piece to attain a unification and sense of ensemble which benefits the disjointed narrative.
However it is the writing which makes this piece truly exceptional. This is a fully formed text, a delicately balanced mobile which posits its argument intelligently through the representation of several viewpoints and makes you question the conclusions you form at the beginning, blowing your assumptions out of the water.
Brace has complete faith in his audiences ability to follow the broken and jumbled up time frame and although at the end he possibly handles the message with too heavy a hand it is a pleasure to see something which trusts its audience so much.
Although I dont necessarily agree with the conclusions in this play, I fully understand them and the skill in the telling of it is astounding. When one of the British writers in this piece says I only write in an attempt to be honest I feel that we are hearing Braces own voice. What he has written is a sharply honest take on perceived morality and a blisteringly perceptive look at our constant need to make ourselves feel more humane.
