COVID-19 POLITICIZED: A STUDY IN DAVID HARE'S BEAT THE DEVIL

Abstract

The theatre is a communal activity: a play is written by a playwright, directed on a stage by an artist, and performed by a number of actors for audience who attend a theatre house. Such incorporation never abides by the strict rules of quarantine and social distancing enforced by national and world authorities. Hence, the closure of theatres and people's shunning such activities. But neither artists nor playwrights have easily given in: they have creatively sought novel techniques of presentation irrespective of different locations of director, actor, and audience. The well-known English playwright David Hare is one of a number of playwrights who have resorted to employ the advanced applications of technology, especially in the field of computer and its utilities, to help in bringing the "theatre" to the audience's places. In this one-act play, Hare exploits his personal experience with Govid-19 to storm his harsh critiques of the political system; hence, the use of the "personal" to criticize the "political." The analogy between his own "sickness" and the "failure" of the political systems to successfully deal with the Govid crisis and its disastrous effects recalls Hare's interest in criticizing the authorities' improper treatment of domestic issues, which poses as a distinctive motif of early plays. This paper is indeed an attempt to explore Hare's dramatic and ironic employment of the Govid disaster