Writer’s Note: Sam O’Sullivan, MCGUFFIN PARK
2024 had been called the year of elections, with almost half the world’s population being called on to vote. And with that comes a lot of campaigning, a lot of debate and a lot of political spin.
Democracy is far from perfect. Even in the most stable governments, it’s a rough game and over time tends to devolve into petty schoolyard tactics. But it is also elegant and, in some ways, extraordinary. For the majority of human history, autocrats, in one form or another, have ruled over subjects who possess few rights. Yet here we have a system of government that separates power into individual branches that hold each other to account while giving the people (the “demo-”) the last word in who leads them. That might sound idealistic and, depending on which country you’re talking about, has more than a few caveats, but in theory it is also true. All democracies strive towards this idealistic definition and all of them, without exception, stumble along the way. It’s just a question of when and how quickly they can recover when they do.
Democracy has developed over a few thousand years and so far, I believe, it’s the best system we’ve been able to come up with. But for democracy to survive and progress, the institutions that maintain it need to be protected. No matter where you live, it will always be under attack, from inside and out, by those who put self-interest first. Right now, it is under attack all over the world as it attempts to adapt to the 21st century.
MCGUFFIN PARK is the story of an idealist who enters the world of democratic politics and struggles to find success while preserving the best parts of herself. The dramatic question in the play isn’t if she will stumble at some point, but when? And when she does, will her moral compass hold long enough for her to remember why she got into politics in the first place? Or will she become just one more self-interested politician intent on tearing things down for her own gain?
Sam O’Sullivan
Don’t miss the world premiere of Sam O’Sullivan’s MCGUFFIN PARK, playing 18 Oct – 23 Nov.