Stuff Happens, NT Olivier, London<br></br>Embedded, Riverside, London <br></br>Dumb Show, Royal Court, London

In the presence of war

Let's hear it for the resurgence of political theatre and all the amassing plays that won't let Bush and Blair conveniently forget about their questionable war in Iraq. It is an exciting phenomenon, drawing keen crowds with shows ranging from satires (like The Madness of George Dubya), to scrupulous verbatim docu-dramas (the Tricycle's recreation of the Hutton Inquiry), to pointedly updated classics (such as Nick Hytner's Henry V with CNN-style propaganda). Last week saw two big-name additions to the continuing debate.

The first is David Hare's Stuff Happens. The title is lifted from Donald Rumsfeld's notorious response to the looting in Baghdad, and Hare's self-styled "history play" focuses on the power wielded by Bush's inner circle - charting their early suspicions about WMD and their increasingly belligerent post-9/11 policies, their internal arguments and their handling of Blair and the UN in the build-up to the 2003 invasion.

Hytner's fluid production is deliberately plain and simple - or designed to look that way. The set (by Christopher Oram) is a wide circle, carpeted in bureaucratic grey and furnished with one long conference table. To avoid this becoming monotonous, a frame above the stage is sometimes illuminated, revealing a glowing, miniature view of the Whitehouse at night or of Bush's Texas ranch at sunset - unsettlingly pretty compared to the business in hand. The cast, mostly dressed in dark suits, sit around the periphery when not participating in the action and serve as a chorus, stepping forward to narrate or to throw in a few sharp comments about the key protagonists - Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld et al.

Hare's programme note explains that all his scenes of direct address quote people word for word, and his quick-fire rounds of soundbites provoke some enlivening outbursts of cynical laughter - not least Bush's declarations that his actions are inspired by God. This verbal grapeshot alternates with longer scenes portraying tense discussions behind closed doors.

Perhaps most startlingly, in the early scenes you start wondering if Hare, the famous Hampstead left-winger, has decided it's time for a swing to the right and that Bush is really his hero in the war on terror. Alex Jennings, who is obviously younger than the real-life George W, has a less ponderous presence and, surely, a higher IQ. This is actually a deliberate shift from the popular cliché that the President is a complete blundering idiot - in the end, Hare and Hytner are creating a more disturbing and complex figure. Jennings captures just enough of the oddly robotic swagger and drawl to both convince and amuse, while exuding surprising vulnerability and a gentle manner - frequently reaching out to touch the arm of an adviser.

After that, he and his neo-con gang's hasty decision to bomb Afghanistan, apparently just as an example to other states, is all the more shocking. Also, it's not a new observation but Bush's repeated comments about his supreme power clearly suggest the US has a dictator in its own midst. Most fascinating is the ambiguity of his close relationship with his security adviser, Adjoa Andoh's ice-cool Condoleezza Rice. She sits at his side in meetings - almost like a psychological crutch - and speaks for him, but you never quite know if she's really running the country or is simply a handy mouthpiece for his policies.

This production is well worth seeing, not staggering perhaps but always absorbing, with intriguing subplots including secret double-dealing by the French over the second UN resolution.

However, I do have cavils. Some characters are less three-dimensional than others. Nicholas Farrell's flailing, snappy Blair too often seems like a comic caricature next to Jennings's subtler performance - although he does have shady moments regarding that intelligence dossier and he is undeniably amusing as he fumes about Hans Blix "running round Mesopotamia like Hercule Poirot". Colin Powell is superbly played by Joe Morton and his impassioned speeches are riveting, but his rectitude is probably a tad idealised to up the dramatic contrast with his horribly aggressive colleagues.

And ultimately, one also has to be wary of political theatre. Hare's authorial note fudges the line between the ideal objectivity of news journalism and stuff he's made up, saying that all the events portrayed have been authenticated by multiple sources and that he's used his imagination. "Nothing in the narrative is knowingly untrue," he says. A slippery phrase surely worthy of a Whitehall spin doctor.

Unfortunately, the other big Iraq war drama turns out to be woefully second-rate. Embedded has caused a stir because it's written and directed by the famously politicised US movie star, Tim Robbins.

However, his satirical depiction of Bush's cabal is embarrassingly crude, boring and bemusing. A bunch of suits, in commedia-style masks, sit on stools screeching like demented parrots and singing pseudo-satanic hymns to their late guru Leo Strauss, who suggested that politicians should be economical with the truth. In between we see young soldiers leaving their loved ones and being traumatised in Gomorrah (as Robbins's allegorical country is called). A few embedded journos are simultaneously bullied and censored by the military, but we never see them meet the soldiers. There are lame disco routines where hacks who toe the army line dance to the required tune, and Robbins mocks the so-called liberation of Private Jessica Lynch as a staged charade. Missable.

Joe Penhall's enthralling new play, Dumb Show, is also about pretending and public displays of repentance. If you are going and don't want to know the plot, you'd better skip the next few sentences. Barry (Douglas Hodge) is a successful TV comedian, being schmoozed in a posh hotel by a couple of laughably dull private bankers (Rupert Graves and Anna Maxwell Martin). Only they are journalists chasing an exposé. (Barry is not averse to substance abuse and his marriage is rocky.) This piece gets off to a slow start and could, if insensitively directed, be reduced to a shallow tragi-comic thriller about celebrity culture and snooping hacks. However, Terry Johnson's superb cast steer an unnervingly fine line between the naturalistic and the nightmarish and, ultimately, this is deeply unsettling about the confused morality of today's media and the crushing of complicated lives into neat stories - in print and on the stage.

'Stuff Happens': NT Olivier, London SE1 (020 7452 3000), to 6 Nov; 'Embedded': Riverside, London W6 (020 8237 1111), to 23 Oct; 'Dumb Show': Royal Court, London SW1 (020 7565 5000), to 9 Oct

k.bassett@independent.co.uk