As we forgive them

East Riding Theatre's latest drama, 'as we forgive them'  maintains the incredibly high standard we have come to expect from East Riding Theatre. Gritty, topical and mesmerising, it is delivered over 3 American election periods from 2008. Was the first night really a fluke in that it coincided with the recent American Presidential election? The result of it, with the change of colour of the new President-elect, certainly reflected the change in tone of the play in its second act.

The drama is set in an American high-security prison. The stage is populated by a table and two chairs and is lit by stark strip-lighting. In the wall behind there are 2 doors, the door on the right having an emergency button next to it. The chairs are for the actors. Charles Daish plays Democrat Senator Daniels, a man who's only daughter was murdered by the man in the other chair, Marc Pickering's Lee Fenton. 

Fenton is an uneducated felon from the Southern States, who has been let down by his family as well as the educational system. But he is not stupid! He is cunning and heartless and knows, initially, how to play Senator Daniels, the man who could get his death sentence reduced. His language echoes his 'alpha male' display - this is definitely not a play for people who are offended by colourful language and aggressive behaviour. 

But Senator Daniels is not everything you might at first think he is - a forgiving man with liberal values who sees education as a way of changing Fenton's thinking and perhaps get him to express remorse for what he has done. Daniels, we discover, can never forgive Fenton and is only educating him for political gain.

Over the 8 years of the play, Daniels encourages and challenges Fenton to understand what he is reading until Fenton trusts him. Fenton can now express himself coherently  - he graduates from college with a degree in literature whereas, at the start of the play, he could only draw pictures of penises or swear to portray his feelings. But, on the day when a new President is elected, Daniels tells Fenton that lessons are finished and he will not be seeing him again. Fenton returns to type, goading Daniels by telling him he didn't kill his daughter anyway. 

The writer, Richard Vergette, is a teacher who is concerned about the way politicians use education as a political football, concentrating more on the 'perceived needs of the state' rather than the needs of the individual'. Had Fenton attended school and been brought up within a loving family, perhaps Senator Daniel's daughter might still be alive. We will never know. 

This play is only 85 minutes long. It has an interval after the first act which should not be there as it dissipates the tension. It has two fine actors who play characters who are both flawed who, after this first night, will undoubtedly ramp up the level of unease and mistrust between them. It is certainly thought-provoking - especially in the dawn of a new age in American politics.