A Dantesque critique on the hypocrisies of war. Packed with shrewd, often cutting, critique at the expense of an emotional punch.
9 Circles is a sharp, critical and observant based-on-a-true-story work from House of Cards writer Bill Cain. The piece is split into nine handy scenes, designed to echo Dante’s journey through the nine concentric circles in Hell, a structure which does well to gradually increase in intensity even when the story is being told out of sequence, giving the feel of the darkness closing in – the noose tightening. In this story the protagonist is Reeves, an alleged war criminal who we learn has done unspeakable things to a young Iraqi girl during his service.
The questions are: why did he do it? how does war change a man? who is to blame, even partly, for such atrocity? and how can, or how should, we judge?
The play takes us through Reeves’ conversations – more often, verbal battles – with all manner of American establishment figures, from an army official to a pastor to a lawyer to a shrink and so on, each designed to represent and consequently challenge their firmly-held positions of judgement.
In this quick-witted, often-skewering commentary, the play succeeds. The writing is fast and exciting, and circles tick by at impressive speed, leaving the audience pleasantly surprised at how we managed to get to wherever we were taken. And any time the dialogue veers close to cliche, the play makes up with clever and effective references to previous scenes, and bold choices from characters who could have easily fallen into two-dimensionality. The pastor’s surprising choice of language, and the lawyer’s tactics to convince Reeves to re-examine his case, are two such particularly fun and compelling examples.
Such writing is demanding for the actors, though it rarely shows. Joshua Collins as Reeves inarguably carries the piece. Tasked with bearing the brunt of the dialogue, he does so expertly, buzzing with frenetic energy and creating a convincing and incredibly captivating performance. His connection with the material, and the audience, was impressive, and I particularly enjoyed the choice to notice moments of audience awkwardness – a head-turn towards a dropped bottle, a cheeky salute to a leaving audience member – even if this did perhaps ever-so-slightly undermine his surprise noticing us in circle nine.
The cast did well to bounce off each other and handle the play’s dynamism, and were at their best when their characters’ deeper layers came to the fore and avoided being a mere mouthpiece for an idea. David Calvitto put in an excellent turn, particularly as the kind-faced lawyer determined to have the case seen in different lights, and both he and Collins capably handled the difficulties that playing in the round can bring. Samara Neely-Cohen and Daniel Bowerbank also had shining moments, the former’s well-meaning shrink and the latter’s calculating pastor both elevating their circles and owning their moments.
Guy Masterson’s direction, alongside Mark Baldwin’s movement direction, handled the piece well, and in all-but-one scene managed to manoeuvre the actors successfully around the space and have them delivering to all sides, without the audience noticing the intention. The choice to keep the set as one ring (or circle) was perhaps obvious but effective – a neat boxing ring for Cain’s verbal sparring – and managed to avoid seeming gimmicky. A same-sized ring above was a nice way of giving a glass cage effect, trapping Reeves, and the simple LED-style lighting from these rings, accompanied by a thrumming soundtrack, did well to aid transitions and lift important moments. The costumes, uniforms of the respective figures, were all they needed to be, the design elements deliberately minimal to place the focus squarely on the dialogue.
It didn’t always work. There are only so many times a character can be stopped just as they are about to exit a room, either by the protestations of the protagonist, or the overwhelming urge to deliver a line that might’ve worked better as an Andy McNab chapter-ender.
The choice to end the play, à la Dante, with our antihero’s version of Inferno, is interesting, but its stylisation and recapping of key moments is almost cringy and falls slightly short. Its attempt at its arguably most emotional moment, aided by solid sound design, hit the heart, but felt undermined by the difficult asks of the actor, and seemed ultimately like too little emotionally-focused moments too late.
This isn’t to say there weren’t beautiful snippets of the emotional weight of the story – the vulnerability shown by Reeves to his shrink, for example – but, for the rest, the play relied on the facts to be horrifying enough.
Mostly, they were. And if not, we were still treated to plenty of Sorkin-style tennis matches and asked, most obviously in the trial scene where the audience are more knowingly included, which side we were on.
Which means it made me think, even if, by not quite marrying the power of its ideas to their emotional burden, it didn’t teach me much. But with a 90-minute runtime, snappy dialogue, and captivating performances, it did leave my partner and I talking about the issues well into the night. Which can only be a good thing.