The language of money: Daniel Lapaine (Nick) and Parth Thakerar (Bashir). Photo: Mark Douet
Theatre: Tricycle Theatre
Play: The Invisible Hand
Playwright: Ayad Akhtar
Director: Indhu Rubasingham
Review by Arani Yogadeva
The dog eat dog environment of a Wall Street trading floor is transplanted to a rural Pakistani prison cell in Tricycle Theatre’s production of Pulitzer award-winning writer Ayad Akhtar’s latest play The Invisible Hand.
American, Ivy League educated banker, and all round high flyer, Nick Bright (Daniel Lapaine) has been kidnapped in Pakistan by a militant group which has mistaken him for his Citibank boss.
The play opens with Dar (Sid Sagar), the lowest level captor, clipping Nick’s fingernails while the banker offers him a crash course in free market economics. Dar delights in the fruits of Nick’s advice to illicitly stockpile potatoes to influence supply (resulting in an increased crop price), only to then sell them at a profit while making sure to convert the unstable Pakistani rupee currency into the more docile dollar.
Enter the initially swaggering Hounslow-born but now Pakistani-bred Bashir (Parth Thakerar) who sets his stall by accusing Nick of introducing Dar to corrupt capitalist ideals before physically attacking his comrade. Bashir threatens that if neither Citibank nor the US government stump up the $10 million ransom for the Nick’s release, he will be handed over to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (the real-life militant organisation which claimed responsibility for the killing of the American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002).
In desperation, Nick volunteers to redeploy his trading skills to transfer the $3 million he holds in a private Cayman Islands account to offset some of the $10 million ransom on his head, within a year. As a result, Nick manages to convince Bashir, Dar and their self-styled leader Imam Saleem (Tony Jayawardena) that he is an asset if kept alive.
Not fully convinced, the Imam decrees that Nick is not allowed direct access to a laptop. Instead, Bashir acts as the middle man, initially at least, with Nick schooling him in the trading know-how of shorts, futures and puts. But in so doing, Nick creates a Frankenstein-esque alliance between them.
Nick quickly demonstrates the value of his trading skills by shorting the assets of a controversial Pakistani businessman hours before his assassination by a suicide bomber from Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, profiting the cell handsomely. The funds are converted from rupees into dollars, demonstrating the ironic windfall of a country gambling against its own weak currency.
As Nick’s personal currency with his captors grow, he discovers, and exploits, a deeper level of corruption and financial hypocrisy at the highest level of the cell. This leads to a new order with startling consequences.
The ‘Invisible Hand’ of the play’s title comes from the free-market theory of economist Adam Smith, that self-interest across the market is a collectively stabilising and corrective force. Akhtar’s play posits the argument that human greed is universal and, as an agent of self-interest, the invisible hand is actually a destabilising force.
His sharp wit and humour is peppered throughout what is essentially a political thriller. As the action is concentrated in set designer Lizzie Clachan’s dusty makeshift prison, the quartet of actors work hard, with Daniel Lapaine totally convincing as the talented banker held captive Nick (with a perfect American accent). Parth Thakerar shines as the young, twitchy militant Bashir and Indhu Rubasingham’s direction is taut and effective in bringing to life some surprisingly funny moments.
Akhtar has written an important, but flawed, play – the final production before Tricycle Theatre closes its doors for a £5.5 million refit. The characters are constrained by a plot which doesn’t always feel credible: the hostage-drama Shawshank Redemption trope of Nick attempting to escape (armed with the now pilfered nail clippers) as the pre-interval cliff-hanger doesn’t really pay off other than to demonstrate that he is now more precious to the cell alive than dead. It works best when we see Nick and Bashir put themselves on the line emotionally.
Early on in the play the Imam declares: “Money, not religion, is the opiate of the people.” The Invisible Hand presents a provocatively potent argument that religious fundamentalism and free-market capitalism are not necessarily poles apart after all.
The Invisible Hand is at the Tricycle Theatre until 2 July 2016.