Last week in London, I saw a 'not-to-be missed' moving play, called Chimerica by Lucy Kirwood and directed by Lyndsey Turner. The starting point is the photograph by Jeff Widener of the unnamed hero who stood in front of the tanks at Tiananmen Square in Beijing to stop further killing of students protesting against the regime. The play questions how meaning in imagery can be skewed or used according to an individual or organisation's own agenda, and the complexity of heroism. Set in Beijing and New York, in a rotating set that gives pace to the piece, a photo- journalist sets out to find 'Tank Man'. He eventually does find his hero but in his search, he falls in love, and finds that there is another Tank Man, ignored by the Western press.
Chimerica is on at The Harold Pinter Theatre; Headlong& Almeida Theatre co-production. www.atgtickets.com
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