David Hare hits the wall. Make that two walls

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Playwright David Hare has been thinking a lot about walls lately. But not just any old plaster job. No, the walls preoccupying his imagination are thick and weighty with political importance. One of them doesn’t exist anymore -- that was in Berlin. The other doesn’t exist yet but will soon -- that will be in the Middle East.

Next month, the British scribe will present a double bill of monologues that will address both of these walls -- past and future -- as part of a special engagement at the Public Theater in New York.

‘Berlin/Wall’ will run at the downtown theater from May 14 to 17. It will be directed by Stephen Daldry, who previously collaborated with Hare on the movies ‘The Hours’ and ‘The Reader.’

Coincidentally (or not), the New York Review of Books just published the second of the two monologues in its most recent issue. ‘Wall: A Monologue’ was performed by Hare at the Royal Court Theater in London in March, and you can read it in its entirety in the NYRB or on its website. (Hey, it’s cheaper than booking an LAX to JFK flight.)

The 4,907 word monologue -- yes, we churned it through Microsoft Word -- is a highly personal, even subjective account of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Of course, Hare has never been shy about his political leanings (‘Stuff Happens,’ anyone?). But by the same token, you could never accuse of him of not doing his research. In fact, his latest monologue contains many startling facts, among which is this tour-de-force paragraph about the Israeli wall:

‘Construction began in 2002. The original plan was that the fence should stretch a full 486 miles, the entire length of Israel’s eastern border. The current estimate for its completion is some-time around the end of 2010. Varying in width between 30 and 150 meters, this $2 billion combination of trenches, electronic fences, ditches, watchtowers, concrete slabs, checkpoints, patrol roads, and razor coil is priced at around $2 million per kilometer. Some seventy-five acres of greenhouses and twenty-three miles of irrigation pipes have already been destroyed on the Palestinian side. More than 3,700 acres of Palestinian land have been confiscated, some of it so that the wall may run yards away from Palestinian hamlets and villages. Already, 102,000 trees have been cut down to clear its path.’

-- David Ng