Neighbourliness
When the expert in the law tested Jesus by asking him "Who is my neighbour?", he posted a question which has continued to trouble many Christians since. Whether we feel a 'burden' for a particular group, and make them our main object of care, or whether we take a more spontaneous approach, responding as needs filter into our consciousness, we are often left with feelings of guilt, a sense that we could be doing more.

In Christopher Shinn's new play at the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court, the main character, Stephen, responds to a call for help from his literal 'neighbour', one of the family who live in the apartment across the hall from his own Manhattan home. The neighbour is older, poor and black and - as Stephen's partner, Tyler, sees it - someone who should not be encouraged to seek help from his affluent white, gay neighbours. He warns Stephen against involvement with the familiar argument that "you can't help everyone, people have to help themselves", but Stephen's liberal beliefs encourage him to continue offering small acts of kindness. As his friend Patricia points out, he sees other people as "who they might be instead of who they are". It's clear she regards this as a weakness.

Grace
Yet Tyler, if relatively selfish and superficial, has his own sense of obligation to a 'neighbour'. In his case, this charity extends to one of his own social group, to Billy who is often rude and abusive, but whom Tyler excuses and on whose behalf he pleads - to Stephen, ironically - for tolerance and forgiveness. Across the hall, the younger of Stephen's neighbours, Shed, plays loud homophobic rap music but shows kindness to a young English girl who, in her turn, offers sexual pleasure to Shed's uncle, apparently out of compassion for his loneliness. And downtown, in the bar in which she works, Patricia handles the crude, but well-meant, attentions of the Wall Street traders with a grace that humbles the audience and which forces Stephen to acknowledge his lack of compassion towards these particular 'neighbours'. Each character has their own individual 'ministry', and all are capable of blindness to the needs of others outside the 'neighbourhood' they have chosen to help.

Throughout the course of the play, the date of the action flashes up on TV screens. It could be random and irrelevant - were the action not taking place last summer. Suddenly, we have moved from August to the end of September. The world has changed. The shift is handled subtly; there are no discussion about the events of the 11th September, just a comment about air pollution, with one of the characters wearing a mask. But there are changes in behaviour, too, and it is left up to us to judge how much they have come about as a result of what we have seen earlier, and how much shocking tragedies affect our relationships. Does it take something like the events of 11 September to give us a new consciousness of who our 'neighbour' really is and the realisation that our neighbours are not just those in the place 'where we live'? Jesus' answer should make such questions redundant, but sometimes we need reminding.

HH

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