Adam, an American doctor, Edward, an Irish journalist, and Michael, an English academic, have little to unite them beyond being human in the same small space. Yet somehow, together, they determine to ward off madness and forestall despair.
Somewhere lurk their unseen captors yet, in the cell, there are stories of adventure and love, there is song and laughter, and even a surge of writing, cocktail-drinking and movie-making.
Inspired by the abduction of Brian Keenan taken hostage in Lebanon in the 1980s, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me is playwright Frank McGuinness’s hymn to the defiant power of the human spirit and the creative imagination.
Director’s Note
Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me is a script that stands the test of time. The themes of the play are terrorism and kidnapping, cultural bias and conflict, and inevitably the death of the innocent. We absorb such events with in our daily press and TV headlines but rarely are we asked to consider the psychological toll of those caught in the middle.
McGuinness takes us almost playfully to witness an American doctor and an Irish journalist who are being held captive by terrorists in Beirut. They are joined by an English academic. The three display national biases and prejudices which are intensified in the cramped confines of their cell. They jest and they argue but are supportive in their mutual determination to survive. It is an emotional journey for an audience through the men’s fear and horror, friendship and fellowship, humour and hope. As time passes, resentments and recriminations give way to an acknowledgment of their own national prejudices, their stereotypes and misconceptions. They learn that humor is the surest weapon against their captors. Each comes to know himself through listening to the others’ stories and, at the end of the play, they are capable of standing alone to face their fate.
Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me has come to be an apt play for a time when extremist forces in both the east and the west bring Armageddon closer by the day.
