16/09/25

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

‘American’ (Nicole Cooper) recounts her memories of what happened back in 1978, when she was working as a photojournalist and introduced naïve Scottish academic ‘Stranger’ (Bobby Bradly) to the man he idolised. ‘Brother’ (David Lee-Jones) is the leader of the Khmer Rouge, the party who imposed communism in Kampuchea in 1975. Stranger has been totally seduced by Brother’s rhetoric about the currency-free society he’s founded and the resulting equality he envisages. Indeed, Stranger is eager to record his hero’s every word so he can produce a revised edition of the book he’s already published: In Defence of Kampuchea.

But he soon discovers that Brother is less than transparent about the ways his new doctrine is imposed – and, when Stranger insists on pushing him for more information, he finally begins to understand the awful truth behind the man’s evangelising.

This three-hander, written by Jack MacGregor and directed by Andrea Ling, serves as a timely warning not to be seduced by the carefully-chosen words of ruthless despots. Brother is, of course, the man who came to notoriety as Pol Pot – responsible for the genocide of more than a million people before finally being deposed.

The three actors all play their characters with authority but the piece occasionally feels a little too didactic. It’s anchored in the same location throughout, and there’s sometimes the feeling that we are being told what’s happening rather than shown it – though I do like the moments when American chooses to ‘rewind’ a scene to replay it in a version that’s closer to the way she actually remembers it. She also uses a handheld red light to pick out key moments in the action, as though developing images in a darkroom.

The distressing conclusion offers little in the way of surprises – indeed, it’s something I’ve been expecting from early on – but, at a time when extremism is once more on the rise, Our Brother serves as a sobering reminder of the horrors that lie behind the reassuring smiles of demagogues.

3.6 stars

Philip Caveney