The Herald

Theatre
d.a.re., Theatre Workshop,
Edinburgh
Mary Brennan

THIS left me on edge, ruffled my well-brought-up, liberal nerve ends feeling as if they'd been scarified with emery boards. I fell asleep, hours later, still inwardly debating the issues raised - and I woke, next morning, mind seething and a bit on the defensive side. Why? Because da.r.e. (Disabled Anarchists' Revolutionary Enclave) puts me - puts us all - on the spot . It challenges the nature of our feelings towards the disabled and it exposes us to their anger. Frankly, my dear these men on stage don't give a damn. They're not interested in the kind of condescending patronage that masquerades as sympathetic concern They're no longer willing to deny sexual desires to spare our blushes, no longer willing to stay silent when science declares it has found ways - involving DNA screening and genetic engineering - of preventing them from being born.

Though the issues under debate are real, the piece itself (devised and directed by Robert Rae) is a modern fantasy, pulling in mythologies while involving new communication technologies to screen conversations. At times; this screening process tends. to slow things up. But it does make the point that, once on the Net, you're free to be the self you want to be - Nabil Shaban`s graphically dialogue with the (unseen) Sirena is a provocative statement of that; there is nothing diminished or disabled about his soul, his imagination, his sexual urges.

Alongside the anger, and the pungent arguments, there is a generous degree of sly humour. It doesn't disguise or destract from the pain and legitimate apprehension of the "Argonauts"` - Shaban, Jim McSharry, John Hollywood, Daryl Beeton - as they declare war on genetic cleansing. Behind all the computer simulation of guerilla tactics, fantasy and spoof-heroics, there are hardhitting verbal bombshells aimed at the concept and practice of eugenics and at those who advocate death rather than disability as an apparent step forward. It's nots a comfortable evening how could it be'?

The Glasgow Herald Saturday, October 18, 1997

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