Noble political theatre

They raised the chilling ghost of Franz Kafka's The Trial last night at the Tricycle. This, though, was no fictitious affair, dealing with a faraway country of which we know little and care less.

Guantanamo implicitly poses a question which comes close to home. Why has the self-righteous Mr Blair condoned President Bush's violation of human rights and natural justice at Guantanamo, that prison hell-hole for al Qaeda suspects?

The authors, Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo, artfully shape their documentary-drama, the latest blast in a line of Tricycle productions, using personal testimonies from recorded interviews and real-life prison letters.

In the process, a host of Kafkaesque horrors come shuffling into view. Guantanamo may be out of date: it was written before the recent revelations of torture, brainwashing and murder at the now notorious prison.

But the speaking of the prisoners' own words, in the form of letters home or testimonies after release, gives this fine production by Nicolas Kent and Sacha Wares a raw vitality.

The idea is to give an impression of injustice in action, of how prisoners remain stranded in a limbo beyond the reach of law or legal process, charged with no specific offence.

The scene on stage is dominated by the wire mesh cages in which the wretched men are housed. The call to pre-dawn prayer is sung. A prisoner sarcastically writes home saying everything is lovely. Views, perspectives and arguments come at us in a subtly clashing array.

William Hoyland spookily dons the mantle and manner of Donald Rumsfeld to assure the world that Guantanamo's cells are just fine.

The prisoners, he explains, will "roughly" - note the adverb - be treated as prisoners of war. Tom Clark's Englishman (impressive Theo Fraser Steele) explains his sister was incinerated in one of those twin towers. Yet for all his loathings he cannot accept Taliban suspects should be denied legal process.

Most of the time the prisoners lie on beds, sit bowed down by fear and crippling chains or speak their disturbed, disturbing letters home.