#aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei

By Howard Brenton

A timely play based on the true story of an imprisoned Nobel Laureate.
On 3 April 2011, as he was boarding a flight to Taipei, the Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei was arrested at Beijing Airport. Advised merely that his travel "could damage state security", he was escorted to a van by officials after which he disappeared for 81 days. On his release, the government claimed that his imprisonment related to tax evasion.
Howard Brenton's new play is based on Ai Weiwei's account in Barnaby Martin's book Hanging Man, in which he told the story of that imprisonment - by turns surreal, hilarious, and terrifying. A portrait of the artist in extreme conditions, it is also an affirmation of the centrality of art and freedom of speech in civilised society. The play premiered at Hampstead Theatre in April 2013, in a production directed by James Macdonald.
'Moving, scary, gripping, inventive and at times laugh-out-loud funny' Telegraph
'Excellent... like a mix of Kafka and Bennett' Guardian
'Tremendously powerful' Financial Times

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: May 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781780012292

Howard Brenton

Howard Brenton was born in Portsmouth in 1942. His many plays include Christie in Love (Portable Theatre, 1969); Revenge (Theatre Upstairs, 1969); Magnificence (Royal Court Theatre, 1973); The Churchill Play (Nottingham Playhouse, 1974, and twice revived by the RSC, 1978 and 1988); Bloody Poetry (Foco Novo, 1984, and Royal Court Theatre, 1987); Weapons of Happiness (National Theatre, Evening Standard Award, 1976); Epsom Downs (Joint Stock Theatre, 1977); Sore Throats (RSC, 1978); The Romans in Britain (National Theatre, 1980, revived at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, 2006); Thirteenth Night (RSC, 1981); The Genius (1983), Greenland (1988) and Berlin Bertie (1992), all presented by the Royal Court; Kit’s Play (RADA Jerwood Theatre, 2000); Paul (National Theatre, 2005); In Extremis (Shakespeare’s Globe, 2006 and 2007); Never So Good (National Theatre, 2008); The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists adapted from the novel by Robert Tressell (Liverpool Everyman and Chichester Festival Theatre, 2010); Anne Boleyn (Shakespeare’s Globe, 2010 and 2011); 55 Days (Hampstead Theatre, 2012); #aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei (Hampstead Theatre, 2013); The Guffin (NT Connections, 2013); Drawing the Line (Hampstead Theatre, 2013) and Doctor Scroggy's War (Shakespeare's Globe, 2014) and Lawrence After Arabia (Hampstead Theatre, 2016). Collaborations with other writers include Brassneck (with David Hare, Nottingham Playhouse, 1972); Pravda (with David Hare, National Theatre, Evening Standard Award, 1985) and Moscow Gold (with Tariq Ali, RSC, 1990). Versions of classics include The Life of Galileo (1980) and Danton’s Death (1982) both for the National Theatre, Goethe’s Faust (1995/6) for the RSC, a new version of Danton’s Death for the National Theatre (2010) and Dances of Death (Gate Theatre, 2013). He wrote thirteen episodes of the BBC1 drama series Spooks (2001–05, BAFTA Best Drama Series, 2003).

Book preview

Howard Brenton

#aiww:

THE ARREST OF

AI WEIWEI

Based on Ai Weiwei’s account in

Hanging Man by Barnaby Martin

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Original Production

Introduction

Characters

#aiiw: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

#aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei was first performed at Hampstead Theatre, London, on 11 April 2013, with the following cast:

Introduction

This play was Ai Weiwei’s idea.

On the 3rd of April 2011 he went to Beijing Airport to fly to Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, via Hong Kong. He expected to be away for a few days and had a few clothes in a small bag. But he was told that his journey could ‘endanger state security’ and security men bundled him into a van. He had disappeared into the dark world of China’s gulag. Colleagues in Beijing expected never to see him again.

But eighty-one days later he was released, a stone lighter with, ironically, his diabetes cured by the meagre but regular prison diet. Unexpectedly he had not been beaten up in jail, as so many of his friends had been, but he was badly shaken and exhausted. He was accused of tax evasion and there were strict bail conditions: he was not to use the internet, not to criticise the Chinese Government in any way, not to sign any petitions for human rights causes, and not to speak to foreign journalists.

And, almost immediately, he spoke to the British arts journalist, Barnaby Martin. He gave a detailed account of his experience: the conditions and routines in prison, the questioning, and his increasingly complex and bizarre relationship with his guards. It is a testament to Ai Weiwei’s strength of character that a strange ‘Stockholm syndrome in reverse’ took place. His interrogators knew nothing of art but ended up debating with him about the purpose of art and even the Dada movement.

Barnaby included the account of the eighty-one days in his book Hanging Man, which describes Ai Weiwei’s life and work and discusses his place in contemporary Chinese art and his political activism. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know about the artist. Ai Weiwei’s creativity is boundless, projects spread out from him like shock waves. And at the end of the interview he surprised Barnaby by saying that he would like the story of his arrest to be made into a play.

Barnaby first considered trying to fulfil the request himself. But, deciding playwrighting was not his expertise, he sent the manuscript of his book to Ed Hall and Greg Ripley-Duggan at Hampstead Theatre. They showed it to me and I said ‘yes, oh yes’. And so here is the play. Ai Weiwei read it just before rehearsals began and, to my immense relief, likes it. He even returned the typescript with some Chinese names and typos corrected!

I am very aware that it is not at all dangerous for me to write the play while it could be very dangerous for him. But it is what he wanted and it has been a privilege to help. In an early rehearsal, during a discussion with the cast and production team, it suddenly dawned on us that we have all now been sucked into the vast Ai Weiwei project! And very willingly.

This was, for me, a unique job. ‘Ai Weiwei’ in the play is a character like any other in a drama, fictional or not, but he is, of course, much more: this is a real man, this really happened to him. So I set myself strict rules. I tried to imagine