Spandan Docu Theatre

Editorial Article

If This Play Were Just a Breathtaking Thriller

A sky-rise was demolished by the attack of an aeroplane. The story of a lost pen drive and many murders. Questions that lost in the quest of their answers. A report by Tapas Sinha on the new play on Kolkata Thaeatre.

Just a “Pen Drive”! And a real story tightly plotted around it that is very rare even for a Holywood action movie. What is that mystery? Let us go back six years ago. 10 September, 2001. Yes, it was just the day before of 9/11. On that day, the New York’s World Trade Centre was bustling with activity in the afternoon as usual. In his office, Geoffrey Dawson, the Chief Security Officer (Electrical), suddenly noticed that the video surveillance cameras situated between 17th and 21st floors of the Trade Center building were not working. That building had 47 internal pillars altogether. The number of external pillars was 238. From every floor one could access the internal pillars for maintenance. As soon as Geoffrey opened the door for entering the internal pillars after reaching the 19th floor, he saw four unknown persons, wearing “Maintenance” jackets, were welding on the walls. The moment Geoffrey challenged them about their identities and activities; they pushed him away and ran off. But the GSM (Graduated Switch Module) camera on Dawson’s cap captured their photos and it automatically got stored in the main computer server system of the Trade Center. Dawson went back to his office immediately and rushed to meet the Director (Security) after copying the entire footage in a pen drive. But the Director did not pay much importance to his story. Dawson tried to show him the footage again from the server. But surprisingly he found exactly that particular portion was missing from there.
Dawson had gone to the office on the next day, too. 11 September, 9-05 a.m. Simultaneously Flight–175 and Flight–11 hit the South and the North towers of the World Trade Center within a period of 15 minutes 29 seconds. One of name in the list of people killed was Geoffrey Dawson.

Where did that pen drive go

Rev Maguire was the wife of Dawson. On the very night of September 10, Dawson told her about the incident. A lawyer by profession, Rev wrote a 12 page letter on that incident and submitted it to the commission appointed by the government for investigating the 9/11 incident. The Commission's record had a mentioning of that. On 22 September, Rev filed a petition in the City Civil Court of Florida. She submitted the same petition in the Federal Head Quarters on the same day. According to "OPEN" (Organisation for Peace & No Terror World), a voluntary organisation of California, Rev went to meet her senior Johns Smucker, an eminent lawyer of Florida, on the next day and found his burnt body was being taken out from his residence.

Besides, Rev's parents got killed, too. Rev's house got ransacked in search of the pen drive. Few officers from CIA, the US investigation agency, met her and enquired about the pen drive. she told them that she had already submitted it in Florida court.

OPEN wanted to bring out one more DVD on the information stored in that pen drive. Prior to this, they had created a sensation throughout the world by publishing several DVDs consisting various unknown information of 9/11. The organisation has claimed that till now, 162 members of their organisation have met unnatural deaths for working to unfold the real event of 9/11.

This is the incident which has been dramatised and staged by Spandan Indian People's Theatre Association, a theatre group of Kolkata. The names of the real characters have been changed in the interest of the drama. Before this, Sangram Guha, the playwright of the drama, has staged "16 Millimetre" , "Operation Flush"and "Istishadi" on worldwide terrorism. Beside Kolkata, in the capital New Delhi, too, they created huge sensations and debates in the political and administrative arenas due to their contents and the remarkable similarities between information of these dramas and the truths. In his latest research based drama "Anticlock", the playwright & director Sangram Guha has raised the question of if the World Trade Center incident was an "attack" then why is the whole world being attacked by a "counter attack"?

The Story of Black and White

On Sepetmber 17, 2001, an American newpaper "The Washington Post" published a report quoting the news agency Reuters. In that report it was mentioned that on September 10, two persons had drunk and merried around in a New York bar till midnight. After that they had scribbled down lewd remarks about USA on the back of their visiting cards. They had also written "WTC will be destroyed tomorrow". Then they left the bar leaving their holy book behind on the table. Lola Kardue, a sex worker who was in that bar, had witnessed the entire event. She had informed the same to the police. On the afternoon of 11th September, FBI placed those two men in their "Wanted List".

On 28th September 2001, a report comes out in an American magazine "The Forward". It said that during the collapse of the World Trade Center a person noticed through the window of his 14th floor room of a slighly faraway building that five men were capturing the image of WTC collapse on video camera from the roof of the opposite building. They were hugging each other and bursting with joy when the second plane was hitting the other tower. The person who had watched that incident got down immediately and informed the police. Police had arrested them, too. But on that very day , they were released. "The Forward" questioned why were these people released without any interrogation when it was known that they were from Israil and were the members of HAMAS, a terrorist organisation? How could even they get back to their country by catching a flight on September 17th? Incidentally the name of the person who had informed this news to "The Forward" magazine was also Lola Kardue. On 30th September the bullet hit body of Lola Kardue was found in a motel beside the Dallas Airport. "The Washington Post" carried the news on October 1.

Under The Lamp

It was told in a DVD, sent to India by OPEN in May last year, that on 8 September, 2001, just three days before the WTC attack, CIA had submitted a report to the office of the President of USA. According to that report, a large amount of military explosives had been accumulated in the city of New York. Atleast 40 military explosive specialists of HAMAS had been brought in to the city. And they were working in the World Trade Center under various false identities. But, the government did not submit that report to the 9/11 Commission. A portion of that signed report has been projected in that DVD by OPEN. According to OPEN, one of the three CIA officers who had prepared that report got killed in a car accident in New York on 19 September in the same year. The rest two died in plane crash on 29 September. A total of 250 passengers got killed in that accident. Those two officers were going to Heuston Texas from New York to take part in a secret mission of CIA.

The Black Box Mystery

On September 11, altogether four planes were hijacked. Along with OPEN, this play, too, has raised the question where did the black boxes of those planes go? The melting point of steel is 2700 degree Farenheit. If it is considered, that the World Trade Center was destroyed as because the steel structures of World Trade Center got melted due to the hit by the plane, still the black box should remain intact. Because, the melting point of a Black Box is 4800 degree Farenheit. What were those conversations recorded in those Black Boxes that could not be made public? 9/11 Commission remains mum. Out of the 8 pilots on board of those four planes, 6 were military trained. How could none of them send even a single message to the Federal Airport Authority on even a single occasion after the hijack?

The world's most advanced instrument to detect the hijacked plane is lying with USA. The speciality of North American Radar System (NORAD) is, if any plane on the American sky flies off the route for only 30 seconds then four F-16 fighter plane will track it out. But on 11 September 2001, Flight 175 and Flight 11 flew for 36 minutes and 43 minutes respectively. The question has been raised in the play that then why these planes could be taken under control before crashing on to World Trade Center? Was the NORAD system not functioning? If so, then who did that?

Who Is Lola Kardue?

In "Anticlock", Neil Fletcher, an American software engineer, was found dead in New York. He was a member of OPEN. Lola has a love affair with him. She stays in a brothel. In order to prove the death of Neil fletcher as a case of suicide, police presents Lola in the New York City Civil Court as a witness on 22nd april this year. In that very court, the lawyer representing OPEN questions, if Lola had died earlier then who is 'this' Lola? He informs the court that "this" Lola is originally Bennet Dawson (Rev Macguire in real life), the wife of Geoffrey Dawson. In order to save that exclusive footage in the pen drive and to save herself she has taken shelter in a brothel hiding her real identity. She used to run the activity of OPEN from there only. The lawyer has pleaded before the court to forgive her considering the social position for the offense of taking a false identity.

"Anticlock" has not shown the end of the story, but has raised a few uncomfortable questions only. Answers?

Can a script answer all the questions?