Ken Loach responds to "expert" criticism of Jim Allen's play Perdition. Yesterday The Guardian. used the opportunity presented by the pulling of the play Behzti. after protests from Sikhs, to ask certain experts how they would have dealt with Jim Allen's play Perdition. , about Zionist collaboration with the Nazis. Unfortunately they forgot to point out that the first of their "experts", Anthony Julius, is a Zionist. Here's his contribution:
"It was a crass unhistorical work that purported to be historical. I would not myself have banned it, but I would have asked the Royal Court give the audience a short, truthful account of the relevant historical events [but not like this.]"
Here's Ken Loach's response:
The truth about Perdition
Thursday December 23, 2004
The Guardian
Your so-called experts who attacked Perdition. repeat the lies that were told when the play was first produced and then censored by the Royal Court in 1987 (Can censorship ever be justified? December 22).
As its first director, I can say that the essential story the play tells - of collaboration of some Zionists with the Nazis in Budapest in 1944 - was not challenged and stands as historical fact. Minute details were rigorously pursued. The torrent of misinformation about Jim Allen's play came from those who objected to the political critique of Zionism and the consequent dispossession of the Palestinians. Max Stafford-Clark, then director at the Court and responsible for the play's censorship, now says that the charge of antisemitism was "bandied about" (Theatre community defends 'courageous Birmingham Rep, December 21). He doesn't have the decency to say that this was unfounded.
The writer Eric Fried, many of whose family were murdered by the Nazis, wrote: "I am envious I have not written [this play] myself ... To accuse the play of faking history or anti-Jewish bias is monstrous. Perdition should be staged wherever possible."
The charge of antisemitism is the time-honoured way to deflect anti-Zionist arguments. The play has been successfully produced at least three times since Stafford-Clark's climbdown. The Rep should have stuck to its guns with Behzti. Let's hope another theatre understands the principle at stake.
Ken Loach
London
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