Dramatic Justice?: The Aftermath of the Holocaust in Ronald Harwood's Taking Sides and The Handyman

Abstract

There are many obvious parallels between the action that takes place in a courtroom and that which commonly occurs in the theatrical space. The trial is performative: within the courtroom, both the public gallery and the jury provide an audience, while lawyers and judges display a grasp of rhetorical skills designed to assist them in out-performing the witnesses. The end result of the trial is not only the verdict, but a completed narrative, pieced together from witness testimony. In this respect, the lawyer can be paralleled to the playwright, choosing what each individual should reveal at any particular moment and, in the lawyer's case, persuading them to do so. Certainly, playwrights themselves have often realised that as a dramatic device, interrogation, whether it takes place in a courtroom or elsewhere, is an economical means of conveying precisely elicited information to an audience. Not only does the trial format dispense with establishing dialogue and elements of exposition, but the question of whether witnesses are speaking the whole truth provides an undertow of dramatic tension.