Wednesday, 20 November 2019

imPEACHable a [very] new play by Matthew Hahn

 

On Tuesday, 19 November 2019, at the Eleto Chocolate Cafe in Folkestone, I presented my latest tribunal play based on the private and public transcripts of the ongoing impeachment trial of the President of the United States. 

The play examines the central tenet of the trials, that is, whether there was a 'Quid Pro Quo' offer in a telephone conversation with the US President and the Ukrainian President in July 2019.  Donald Trump insists he did nothing wrong and that his conversations with the Ukrainian President were ‘perfect.’  But the play hears from the others in his administration about how perfect the phone call might have been. 

In an age of fake news, witch hunts, spin and short news cycles, tribunal theatre is a tremendous platform on which to examine and illuminate the context and causes of trust and leadership and the potential of both to breakdown. 

The play is edited from congressional testimony from October & November 2019. 
imPEACHable is ripped from the headlines theatre, to be presented on a regular basis throughout the entire congressional hearing.

The play opens with a recording of the 'perfect' phone call between the United States President Donald Trump & the Ukrainian President Zelensky followed by the edited closed-door testimony of two witnesses, Ambassador Sondland and Marie Yovanovitch, from October 2019.  The transcripts were released in early November of over 900 pages which have been edited to 30 pages.  As the play progresses, upstage the live hearings are being broadcast in real time to add to the metatheatrical nature of the trial itself [Donald Trump live tweeting during the trial and the Chairman of the committee commenting on said tweets to the witness].  

As the trial progresses, the script will be regularly updated to give audiences access to a trial with international ramifications. 



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