Political Action

“What has happened to political theatre in the US? Engulfed as we are by the coverage of the chaos in Iraq and the ongoing threat of terrorism, it’s hard not to wonder what kind of rarefied world our playwrights are living in. Suffice it to say that the great wealth of work seems strangely removed from anything approaching the urgent reality of our daily headlines. But critics should be clear on how they’d like the theater to respond. Are we merely looking to theatricalize the same journalistic images that CNN and its rivals have transformed into Nielsen rating packages? Or is it a bit of didacticism that we’re after, a cup of moral advice sweetened by a dose of drama?”