At St. Ann’s Warehouse, the Devastating ‘Grenfell: In the Words of Survivors’ Urges Close Attention

But will Americans want to see this? When New York theater people talk about Grenfell: in the words of survivors, a documentary play, originally staged at London’s National Theatre, chronicling the disastrous fire in a 24-story low-income apartment building in West London that killed 72 people and left countless others homeless in 2017, that is the question. Yes, it’s an enormously crowded season, both on and off-Broadway, and one can’t see everything. My thought? Make Grenfell a priority. Playing until May 12 at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, it is a fulfilling theatrical experience, an education in humanity transcending mere entertainment. Tickets are priced reasonably enough, and I don’t think there is a bad seat in the house.

Why will Americans care? Because we should. Never disputed is the brilliance of this heartbreaking, mind-boggling, angering dramatic work. Brilliantly staged and directed by Phyllida Lloyd and Anthony Simpson-Pike and magnificently written by Gillian Slovo—who has aggregated, verbatim, the court testimonies and interviews of the surviving residents, as well as local authorities, firefighters, and business owners—when it was staged in London there was a therapist on the premises in case any audience member was triggered. In Brooklyn, one is invited to leave the theater, regroup, and return if one can handle the intensity of emotions.

The company of Grenfell: In the words of survivors.

Photo: Teddy Wolff

Powerful, yes—but can Americans relate, will they want to give a care when we have our own problems, what does Grenfell have to do with us? Was it even covered in the American media at the time? Although nowhere near as much as it was in London’s news outlets, over the years there have been upwards of about 30 stories in The New York Times, appearing in its European sections.

But Grenfell commands our attention because it is as much an American story as it is a British tragedy. What happened at Grenfell, we learn when we see the play, is that our American greed caused these deaths as much as did Britain’s often poisonous, pridefully byzantine bureaucracy, in which organizational systems are often held higher in priority than human need and logic. Plus, the sins of Anglo-American systemic racism, the conundrum of international CEOs and their elected darlings championing deregulation, and last and perhaps most saddening the blind trust of people putting their faith in the rich and/or elected. At the end of that fateful night and day, Grenfell combusted because it was filled with American-made products that were not fire-proof nor fire-resistant. The London Fire Brigade did everything it could prior to the Grenfell fire to ban these products, but deregulation efforts by British elected officials trumped their efforts.

Although the materials made and distributed by two American businesses, Arconic, formerly Alcoa, and Whirlpool, are not allowed in the US, “such regulatory gaps expose how multinational corporations can take advantage of the vulnerabilities in government oversight,” The New York Times reported in 2017. “The two American manufacturers involved, Arconic and Whirlpool, are widely expected to be central players in litigation over the fire.” The cases against these firms are still pending.

I hesitate to recap the plot. I hope you will see Grenfell and be astounded as I was as the storytelling unfolds in one factual account after another. I went to bed last night, after attending the opening—it was, appropriately, very low-key, with no red carpet—expecting to dream about a fire that would cost me my two favorite possessions, my life and my home. I did not. Instead, I went to sleep and rose today reflecting on the crimes of neglect. Neglect on the personal level, the societal level, the governmental level. How CEOs and elected officials neglected decency to compromise the health and safety of the people living in Grenfell. When authorities told those people—as was their policy—to not flee in case of fire, but to stay put until they could be rescued by firefighters, they obeyed. They trusted. They counted on the people of privilege in charge of their wellbeing. But the people of privilege aren’t always who they used to be; smitten by greed, manny have lost their way.

Joe Alessi, Dominique Tipper, and Houda Echouafni in Grenfell: In the words of survivors.

Photo: Teddy Wolff

On the Upper East Side this morning, one could hear the helicopters and sirens protecting a former president on his way to a trial about several less egregious things, including a violation of New York State election law, “conspiracy to promote election.” Thinking about Grenfell, I remembered a remarkable piece of writing on Trump that I read in The Guardian this winter. In its way, would help to shed light on how, with the permission of UK governmental deregulators, American firms could so egregiously and willfully sell life-threatening, highly combustible materials for housing innocent, trusting, racially diverse people with lower incomes.

“US culture is an incubator of extrinsic values,” wrote George Monbiot. “Nobody embodies them like the Republican frontrunner.” Whereas “people with a strong set of intrinsic values are inclined towards empathy, intimacy, and self-acceptance,” he continued, “people at the extrinsic end of the spectrum are more attracted to prestige, status, image, fame, power and wealth.”

In Monbiot’s view, America is fertile soil for extrinsic values, which is why right-wing politics have so many believers. Extrinsic values are also one of America’s greatest exports: the marketing of insecurity, and “the individuation of blame.” On both sides of the Atlantic, there are bills to deal with homelessness. In the United Kingdom, people who sleep on the streets might be imprisoned or fined over £2,500 for creating a nuisance or damage—including by smelling bad. “People are being blamed for their own destitution, which in many cases will have been caused by government policy,” Monbiot observed in his article. And, no doubt, it was aided and abetted by the extrinsic natures of American corporations—and the over-confident, anything-for-the-bottom-line CEOS of companies such as Arconic and Whirlpool.

Grenfell: in the words of survivors is playing through May 12 at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn.