Based on the incarceration of Brian Keenan and John McCarthy in Lebanon, Someone Who'll Watch Over Me begins and ends in puzzled solitude. It's the mid-1980s in a Beirut cell where Adam, a Yank and the first hostage, does push-ups. Despite both being left only underwear and equally short-chained to the floor, he and Edward are just starting to share. Irish Edward moans that he couldn't convince the Arabs he's from a neutral country. Edgy and sooo bored, they try to keep track of time and fill it. Adam fears going mad. Music brings in Michael -- "Britboy," as Edward would have him. He wakens on a third hunk of cement. A teacher of Old and Midle English, he was picked up on way to market. Self-pity runs rampant. Once they've made their way past their prejudices, though, the men dump divisive things (like should Michael assume guilt as an Englishman for Edward's "Irish situation)".
As they use the strengths in their different backgrounds, they become friends and make their situation bearable. They joke (and they're really funny), tell stories, consider strategies (like writing imaginary letters home) for coping and possibly getting out. When Edward leads them in song, they achieve auditory harmony to match their psychological status. How they leave -- or don't -- comes after suspense and, finally, with chills.
Patricia Kessler keeps the action and atmosphere so tight that we too feel confined, focused. No wonder she's making a name among Parisian metteurs en scene. Christian Erickson mixes admissions of fear with an authority seemingly born of long experience in captivity. With his not-too-heavy accent, Damian McCann exudes Irish fatalism. And if there is any better or more versatile bilingual stage actor in France than Les Clack, I haven't seen him yet. Genial as Michael, he yet makes an outburst important. Clack paints an unforgetable image at closing.
How I wished to prolong my stay in Paris to see Dear Conjunction's version of The Hothouse. Harold Pinter is, fittingly, a patron of the group.
