The Permanent Way

Synopsis

A compelling work of documentary drama from Britain's "greatest living political playwright" (New Statesman).

In a last-ditch attempt to swing an election that they didn't expect to win, Britain's Conservative Party government made the fateful decision to privatize the country's railway system.

Twelve years later, the results of that choice are disturbingly clear: unpredictable schedules, hemorrhaging costs, and the fateful deaths of several passengers after a succession of disastrous crashes.

In this classic achievement of Brechtian, agit-prop theatrics, award-winning playwright David Hare gathers together the first-hand accounts of those most intimately involved--from every level of the system.

The result is a fascinating parable described by Guardian theater critic Michael Billington as a "dazzling oral mosaic" and a "vitally necessary piece of theatre" which poses a compelling metaphor for the state of the world at large.