Robert Rhode and Barton Williams in Dead Time; Photo Phyllis Wong
On 2nd July 2007, Dr. Mohamed Haneef, an Indian national working at a Gold Coast hospital, was arrested and detained without charge for a month under Australias newly imposed anti-terrorism laws. Despite the dubious evidence which led to his arrest, Haneef spent the longest period of time on record in the country in detention under ‘dead time’ provisions, which state that there is no limit on the time for which a person can be held in custody on suspicion of terrorism. Upon release, despite being found innocent, his visa was revoked and he was forced to return home to India.
Lace Balloon’s Dead Time tells Haneef’s story by utilizing verbatim sections from interview transcripts between the AFP and Haneef. It asks the questions: How do we protect national security? And at what cost to our freedom? Who leads the national conversation about race, religion and national identity and how do we hold them accountable?
Eight years after the event these are still bold and painfully relevant questions in today’s society, so it’s unfortunate that Dead Time not only fails to answer these questions, but fails to even raise an interesting discussion around them. Dead Time’s rendering of Haneef’s story is completely one-sided and fails to explore the legal details surrounding Haneef’s arrest or release, instead choosing to repeat the same themes insisting Haneef’s innocence over and over again. Consequently, the production lags a little and we are left hungry for nuance and complexity.
Politics aside, there are enough moments of warmth and humour peppered throughout the script, which saves it from being too repetitive or preachy. The dynamic between Robert Rhode as the charismatic yet sensitive Haneef and Paul Armstrong as his Lawyer Peter Russo is particularly enjoyable, and it’s unfortunate that their bro-mance doesn’t get more performance time. With the exception of the two male leads, performances are enthusiastic but generally underwhelming.
Writer/Director Fleur Beaupert has take a somewhat experimental approach to this story with varying success, utilizing an ensemble cast in the sparse performance space of 107 Projects. She creates a filmic quality by the heavy-handed, conscious and frequent manipulation of time, which keeps the pace moving, despite being over-used and a little jarring. Less successful is the cartoony and frankly irritating sound design, which could have been edgy with more restraint, but instead plays out as tacky. The technique of having the performers switch characters mid-scene is also confusing and unclear as to what it was meant to achieve.
This story is pitched as political, but is oversimplified to a point which renders the politics moot. One wonders if a more effective approach would have been a character-driven exploration of Haneef’s story, which is fascinating in it’s own right. What we have in Dead Time is neither here nor there – a halfhearted attempt at news reporting style (with an obvious bias), with glimpses of emotion which are inherent in Haneef’s journey. On all levels, this is a fresh production group finding it’s feet through experimentation, and although it’s a little loose, it’s interesting enough to check out.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Dead Time
Writer/director Fleur Beaupert
Running to 29 May
107 Projects, Redfern NSW
