Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: John O’Gorman, Lew Freeburn, Franklyn Jacks, Thom Williamson, Addae G.
The cause célèbre is one that as the 21st Century has marched onwards has gained ever more attention, everyone it seems today has the potential to seek a worthy initiative in which to fight against many of the injustices that blight and damage society. This positive conflict is what keeps us on our toes, but also one that perhaps is orchestrated behind the fact that never before has the ability to rub shoulders and ideas with those we perceive to be celebrity been so prevalent.
Of course, the will to be attached to a cause is deeply embedded, those who don’t make a stand at least once in the name of the justice and balance they seek have not sought out their own soul.
The cause célèbre is not new, but it is those to whom seek enlightenment in the most unexpected areas that are to be found as willing to be participants, even for a moment, even away from the glare of lights and cameras, that we arguably should be ever more grateful for.
Jane Fonda had her time protesting voraciously about the senselessness of The Vietnam War, George Clooney’s dedication in modern times has seen him take on many selfless causes, Willie Nelson brings the activism of Farm Aid to the people, but to bring a name into the public arena, one whose fame transcended his time and unite it with perhaps the most unlikely of people, the Liverpool born Irish Socialist trade union leader James Larkin, is not what you would expect to be linking cinema giant Charlie Chaplin with.
This was not a cause célèbre in the traditional sense, as Larkin was jailed as part of the Red Scare, for what essentially was seen as Unamerican Activities long before the drama captured by that name by the morally bankrupt Senator Joseph McCarthy and spent his time in the notorious Sing Sing Prison, where among his visitors was the great man of silent film.
Frank Kenny’s Stone On Stone explores that meeting between two resolute and determined men, the interaction between worlds and finds that creation itself is small, that connections are always entwinned, a momentary meeting can leave an indelible mark on someone, and that cause célèbre that might exist between two men who once lived in the same city at the same time, was more born out of respect and empathy, out of admiration for the prisoner’s strength of character and stand in the face of oppression.
Stone On Stone is itself born of virtue, one to which displays fierce argument, and the wise words of warning that some will use your dedication to highlight a wrong by back-stabbing you in the furtherment of their own standing within that community.
Directed by the talented Mikyla Jane Durkan, and with terrific application by John O’Gorman and Lew Freeburn in the respective roles of Larkin and Chaplin, Stone On Stone is a reminder of a time when even closed doors could not stop a right from being sought, of influence and rhetoric being held up as an example of prominence and significance.
A moment of truth is all we can ever ask for in any theatrical production, and Stone On Stone exemplifies that with pin point observation. Ian D. Hall