Theatre / “Bin Laden: The One Man Show” by Tyrrell Jones, at The Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre, until March 30. Reviewed by HELEN MUSA.

THE art of theatrical seduction is in full play for British company Knaïve Theatre’s extraordinary production of “Bin Laden: The One Man Show”.

In a kind of Brechtian-alienation joke wherein blonde-haired, blue-eyed RADA-trained actor Sam Redway plays the “Darth Vader” or “Joker” (as he says) for the entire western world – Osama bin Laden. The evening begins with the performer serving tea and “bikkies” to the audience—“what a nice young man,” one of them says.

After that, Redway entices the audience into his world, first in a kind of Q&A asking people what their moral priorities might be – how far they would go to protect the world for their children and just what they think of politicians within the democratic society – the answers suggest the need for some moral purification.

The show follows a mixture of narrative and motivational talk, in which Osama —“call me Abu” — heads for the white butchers’ paper for a rundown on “how to change the world”.

Avoiding a formal historical rundown on Bin Laden’s career, Redway plucks a young woman from the audience onto the stage, introduces her as his childhood sweetheart Najwa, proposes to her and is, naturally, accepted. His marriage and the subsequent birth of his son Abdullah arouses his awareness of the injustices of the world, taking him out of his native Saudi Arabia and into the part of Afghanistan known as Tora Bora where he helps train the Mujahedeen to fight the Russians. When Osama and his pals gun down a Russian plane, the audience applauds—whoops!

Guiding the way is Osama’s mentor from King Abdul Aziz University, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, also plucked randomly out of the audience. Last night by sheer coincidence Redway chose a seasoned Canberra actor, to whom he returned several times, planting words of wisdom in his ears which were delivered with quiet, compelling authority.

Azzam’s calm advice to find a powerful ally but to be wary of the US evolves into a cogent argument as the Americans hook up with Saudi Arabia over Kuwait’s oilfields. The argument is, candidly, very persuasive.

The story continues, taking the audience to a jihadist centre in Sudan, to Mogadishu in Somalia, back to Saudi Arabia, then finally returning to the tunnels of Tora Bora for an austere committed life that even Najwa cannot tolerate and his son Abdullah rejects.

A vision of how to sort out the world’s injustices gradually appears, symbolised by a butcher’s paper image of twin towers, then a blank page. The play is done, the seduction complete, and the audience is complicit.

Redway and the writer/director Tyrrell Jones stayed around for a freewheeling conversation about matters like the Christchurch killings, how Americans reacted to the play when it toured the US, and how extreme movements are so often rooted in social injustice.

“Bin Laden: The One Man Show” is an unexpected, unique theatre experience and an adornment to the Canberra Theatre’s “ETCETERA” season.