Osama the Hero
Image: Tel Benjamin and Joshua McElroy. Photo: Ross Waldron
Within the microcosm of an English housing estate there is a spate of firebombing and garage burning that no one can explain. Gary (Joshua McElroy) is an outsider. He’s asked at school to write a project on a national hero and he writes about Osama Bin Laden. His neighbours find out he’s written this project and decide he must be the one committing the attacks. So they kidnap him and interrogate him.
Osama the Hero is about British estate culture, where there is a sense of dissatisfaction, almost a despair. The residents struggle to rise above their lot in life. They are stuck in a cycle of poverty, of hopelessness which can lead to negative impacts on society – the violence, the fear, the paranoia. Born out of this fear is tribalism, an ‘us and them’ mentality. Anyone who thinks outside the group is someone to be suspicious of, it’s something that can be dangerous, that needs to be thwarted.
Gary never expresses any Islamic sentiment, instead Osama the Hero makes a statement about the rise of the right wing.
“It goes to your guts, and it’s not afraid. It makes you feel uncomfortable,” explained the play’s artistic director, Richard Hillier. “I really want to make people think about their prejudices and to think about how open to examining new points they are, or if they are like the characters in the play who think there’s only one way of thinking and if you don’t think like that you’re dangerous. I want to see if people can recognise that in themselves and maybe rethink their approach in life.”
Osama the Hero is playing at the recently established theatre venue on the second floor of the Kings Cross Hotel; it’s a permanent traverse stage, with the audience on both sides, the only one of its kind in Sydney. (MS)
Jan 21–Feb 4; Tues-Sat 8pm, Sun 4pm. The Kings Cross Theatre (KXT), Level 2, 244-248 William Street, Potts Point. $20-$30. Tickets & info: www.toothandsinewtheatre.com
BY MEL SOMERVILLE
