An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen

Source of book: I own this.

I had intended to go see a modern adaptation of this play down in Los Angeles this summer, but was unable to find an open date. Truth be told, it was either this one, or The Mikado, and Gilbert and Sullivan tends to win that contest. I can’t say I regret the choice either, as we had a lot of fun.

For some reason, Ibsen seems to have gone out of style, and hasn’t been performed much around here. I think there was a production of A Doll’s House at The Empty Space over a decade ago (when small kids made it harder to go see stuff), but that’s literally all I remember seeing. I read Ghosts a few years back, and found that one fascinating. 

Anyway, it was high time I read some more Ibsen, and I went with this one. 

An Enemy of the People is a someone unusual play, and one that I felt pivoted from perceptive and timely to...I’m not sure what Ibsen was intending. In some ways, it is like the ending of Le Misanthrope, where Alceste stalks off and renounces humanity altogether, leaving everyone else wondering what just happened. But at least Moliere’s characters act in accordance with their personalities, while Dr. Stockman seems to just go off the deep end in ways that make no sense to me. Let me see if I can explain. 

Dr. Stockman is the brother of the mayor of the town, which has recently opened baths, expected to be a huge tourist attraction. Dr. Stockman serves as the medical officer for the baths, in addition to his private practice. As part of his duties, Dr. Stockman sends the waters of the baths out to a lab for analysis. However, when the results come back, they are quite unpleasant. Because of where the town decided to source the water, the baths are badly contaminated with dangerous bacteria. The choices are all likely to be unpopular. Either they shut down the baths, re-route the source pipes to a different supply at significant cost, or shut down the tanneries which are the source of the bacteria. Oh, and the biggest polluter happens to be Dr. Stockman’s father in law. Ouch. 

For Dr. Stockman, his duty is obvious: he must tell the truth about the baths, consequences be damned. He enlists the editor of the local liberal paper, and has his article about to go to press when everything falls apart. The wealthy owners of the baths basically have the Mayor in their pocket, and enough influence with various people and groups to control the narrative. The paper is coerced into dropping Dr. Stockman’s expose and instead printing a propaganda piece from the Mayor claiming the baths are perfectly safe. 

That’s pretty much the summary of the first three acts. Noble truth-teller is stymied by entrenched economic powers when he tries to warn of impending environmental disaster. That actually sounds a lot like our own time - 140 years later. Also prescient is the title itself, which has now been used by our own little fascist wannabe to describe any portions of the free press which criticize him. This part of the play makes sense. It is in the fourth act that things start to go really weird. 

Dr. Stockman, refusing to give up, finds a venue, and announces that he will be giving a talk, inviting the town to shop up. They do, but so does the Mayor, and manages to take control of the proceedings to an extent. But then, when Dr. Stockman does manage to get the floor, he doesn’t give his prepared remarks about the contamination of the baths. Instead, he launches into a diatribe against ordinary people in general and working class people specifically, spouting stuff about eugenics and how democracy is terrible because people are stupid, and goes quite off the rails. 

Predictably, this turns everyone against him, and he finds himself pretty much run out of town on a rail. The play ends with him defiantly proclaiming himself the only true man among them. 

It is this twist which makes for some serious whiplash. Who is the Doctor? Is he a noble whistleblower, concerned about shining a light on corruption and trying in good faith to prevent a bigger disaster? Or is he a misanthropic crank who just wants to shake his cane at the world? Or maybe an arrogant elitist who thinks only the “worthy” should have political power? Did his misfortune cause him to go insane? I have no idea, because Ibsen seems to get confused as to the point of the play. 

I read up on it a bit, and discovered that Ibsen wrote An Enemy of the People in response to public outcry against his previous play, Ghosts. To what extent he considered himself to be Dr. Stockman is not clear, and his comments on the play later in his life imply that he himself wasn’t sure whether his characters are intended to be farcical or serious. Take it as you like it, I guess. 

I do wonder if a stronger second half of the play would have made it both more powerful and more popular. As it is, in its unmodified form, it would be difficult to work with. This was already the case by 1950, when Arthur Miller reworked it, he took out the eugenics and made Dr. Stockman into a champion of the lower classes. There was only so much that could be done, however, and a comparison of the speeches show that, of necessity, a certain disdain for “primitive” people remains. 

That said, the framework of the play, along with the first three acts, tackle some important issues which have not gone away - they have increased in fact. The first is the key question of environmental protection versus economic interests. Ibsen will be instantly understood by the smaller towns dependent on, say, coal mining. The economic consequences of environmental protection tend to fall hardest on those least able to bear them, while the wealthy ride off with their fortunes into the sunset. In this case, the bath owners could certainly afford to spend the necessary funds to fix the contamination. But that would impair profits. So they tell the Mayor that if the town wants the fix, the town pays for it. And that would fall on ordinary taxpayers. It really does seem amazingly relevant. 

Another major theme is the question of ethics for professionals and experts. The Mayor insists that Dr. Stockman’s duty is to his employer: the baths. He is not a free man to tell the truth as he sees it, but must instead look out for the best interests of the people who pay him. This is the rub for experts in general. Is the higher duty to tell the truth and act in the public interest? Or to advocate for your boss? The lines are not always clear. (We lawyers have our own set of dilemmas along that line, as we are by definition advocates for our clients, but cannot knowingly mislead.) 

Finally, there is the set of challenges facing whistleblowers. Dr. Stockman faces losing everything. His home, his livelihood, his daughter’s livelihood, his reputation, his friends, and even his family. The reason we have whistleblower protection laws is for this very reason. Warning of malfeasance when that malfeasance is highly profitable is a dangerous act, and usually carry devastating consequences. Which is exactly why we protect whistleblowers. 

It is interesting the way Ibsen handles the family dynamics. Mrs. Stockman is mostly supportive, but urges him to be prudent. (Come to think of it, she is clearly the most sensible person in the play.) The eldest daughter is practically a radical in her support for her dad - she may go even further than he does. The boys are a bit young to really figure in things, except as a reason given why Dr. Stockman should be quiet and hush up the contamination. 

I have an old Modern Library hardback containing eleven Ibsen plays in English translation. For some reason, the book does not have (or no longer has?) the publishing date or the name of the translator(s). It seems to be a decent translation, although I don’t have the knowledge necessary to compare it to the original. There are some memorable lines, which I will assume Ibsen intended. 

First is this humorous exchange early on. The mayor, Peter Stockman, comments on how heartily Dr. Stockman’s children eat. (I hear that about my kids too.) 

“Lots of food - to build up their strength! They are the people who are going to stir up the fermenting forces of the future, Peter.”

“May I ask what they will find her to “stir up,” as you put it?

“Ah, you must as the young people that - when the time comes. We shan’t be able to see it, of course. That stands to reason - two old fogies, like us.”

More seriously, though, Peter has come to warn Dr. Stockman about going against those in power.

“You have an ingrained tendency to take your own way, at all events; and that is almost equally inadmissible in a well-ordered community. The individual ought undoubtedly to acquiesce in subordinating himself to the community - or, to speak more accurately, to the authorities who have the care of the community’s welfare.”

Ah, there’s the rub. One must submit to the authorities, and keep one’s mouth shut. I very much thought of the ill-advised designation of Extinction Rebellion as a dangerous extremist group in Britain. Most telling is this line: the group is a risk to public safety because of “Anti-establishment philosophy that seeks system change underlies its activism…” Hmm, speaking up against the establishment and seeking system change...we definitely can’t have THAT! Nor can we have people telling rather obvious truths. 

“As usual, you employ violent expressions in your report. You say, amongst other things, that what we offer visitors in our Baths is a permanent supply of poison.”

“Well, can you describe it any other way, Peter? Just think - water that is poisonous, whether you drink it or bathe in it! And this we offer to the poor sick folk who come to us trustfully and pay us at an exorbitant rate to be made well again!”

Of course, here in the 21st century, we seem to prefer to inflict our poisoned water, not on rich suckers looking for a miracle cure, but on low income African American communities.

Peter suggests a more “reasonable” approach to the problem: put it aside for bit, then look at “remedies” which do not disturb the existing water supply. The Committee might consider “certain improvements” that are consistent with a “reasonable expenditure.” Sound familiar? 

And certainly, he shouldn’t go around spreading ideas about change. 

“Well, but is it not the duty of a citizen to let the public share in any new ideas he may have?”

“Oh, the public doesn’t require any new ideas. The public is best served by the good, old established ideas it already has.” 

Yeesh. There are some definite parallels to Fundamentalism there. “No new ideas! We already know everything and don’t intend to change!” This idea is stated in a more scandalous form during Dr. Stockman’s later screed, where he goes from the noble “new information leads to rethinking ideas” sort of thing to “truth only lasts for a little while then dies.” As I said, a bit off the rails. 

It later becomes all too obvious, though, who is pulling the strings. At the newspaper office, Aslaksen, the printer, and Hovstad, the editor, are informed by Peter that they cannot print Dr. Stockman’s article. Peter insists that it would bankrupt the town. Here is the exchange that follows:

Peter: “Of course it will be necessary to raise a municipal loan.”

Hovstad: “Surely you never mean that the town must pay---?”

Aslaksen: “Do you mean that it must come out of the municipal funds? --out of the ill-filled pockets of the small tradesmen?”

Peter: “Well, my dear Mr. Aslaksen, where else is the money to come from?”

Aslaksen: “The gentlemen who own the Baths ought to provide that.”

Peter: “The proprietors of the Baths are not in a position to incur any further expense.” 

And this is where I decidedly part ways with Libertarians. This is precisely what happens with pollution absent government action. Sure, sooner or later the truth might come out. But the investors will have looted the corporation and left a shell and a trail of damage. Seriously, look at any mining community. This is how unregulated (or underregulated) capitalism works. The rich plunder, privatizing the profit, while socializing the risk. Everyone else pays, they win. 

One could certainly see how Dr. Stockman would go crazy after this scene. A right and just result seems impossible. In that sense, Stockman’s speech in Act Four starts off so well:

“[W]hat I want to speak about is the great discovery I have made lately -- the discovery that all the sources of our moral life are poisoned and that the whole fabric of our civic community is founded on the pestiferous soil of falsehood.”

I kind of concur. A lethal brew of xenophobia, social darwinism, and religious bigotry has poisoned our civic community, and particularly our churches. But then Stockman gets more and more vicious toward ordinary people, culminating in this nonsense which gets him booed off the stage:

“That is, the doctrine you have inherited from your forefathers and proclaim thoughtlessly far and wide -- the doctrine that the public, the crowd, the masses are the essential part of the population -- that they constitute the People -- that the common folk, the ignorant and incomplete element in the community, have the same right to pronounce judgment and to approve, to direct and to govern, as the isolated, intellectually superior personalities in it.” 

It is rather easy to recognize this sort of thing. I heard it a lot before I left the GOP, and continue to hear it in every justification for voter suppression. “If we could just keep those people from voting.” Usually meaning the poor, minorities, the disabled, those with criminal records. They don’t understand things as well as middle class white people, right? It gets worse, as the Doctor compares commoners to mongrels rather than purebreds, and so on. 

Near the end, Dr. Stockman considers emigrating to America, although he eventually concludes that things are probably bad there too, because “from one end of this country to the other, every man is the slave of his Party.” That one is pretty dang true, alas. One of the hardest things to stomach about the Trump Era is watching family members literally defend what they used to condemn, because the official stance of their party changed. 

The play never really resolves things, because Stockman apparently decides to stay, despite having no home or job or prospects. What he will do? Who knows. But he has made his moral point and that is that. Well, except for more complaining about how nobody likes him anymore. It is Mrs. Stockman who gets in the best line here:

“But, Thomas dear, the imprudent things you said had something to do with it, you know?”

Perhaps Stockman might have listened to his wife a bit earlier, stuck to his key point about the poisonous waters, and then let the furor die down one way or another. But that might not have made either as tragic or humorous (take your pick) ending. 

Having read this one, I think that my conclusion is that, on the one hand, the subject matter of the play is highly relevant, and the questions it raises are important. However, it isn’t as well conceived as Ghosts or his other better known plays. I have to wonder if Ibsen’s own ire at the reception of Ghosts caused him to lose his objectivity for a while, and the flaws in the play stemmed from that. 

My edition of the plays contains a delightful introduction by H. L. Menken (who, like Ibsen and many others of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, held eugenicist and racist ideas, sadly), who points out that Ibsen wasn’t nearly as radical as he was accused of being. His ideas are often obvious, if rather inconvenient, truths. But, as Menken puts it, Ibsen “put obvious thoughts into sound plays.” I considered quoting a bit of the intro, but I couldn’t decide where to start or stop. It is a really good bit of work, and worth reading, if you find it. 

  

Antigone by Sophokles (Anne Carson translation - CSUB 2019)

I was homeschooled from 2nd grade on, but for my last three years, I used video courses for my subjects. Although the coursework had some flaws, coming from Fundie publisher A-Beka, in general, the teachers were pretty good. I have a particular fondness for Mr. Collins, who taught 10th and 12th grade English. A crusty old guy, he was quietly subversive, going outside Fundie orthodoxy in his teaching (in a subtle way - that’s presumably how he kept his job) and really inspiring a love of literature. I have no idea if he is still living, but in any event, kudos to him for part of my good education.

In that 10th grade class, we studied World Literature, starting with Gilgamesh, but I particularly remember enjoying our study of Antigone. While it appears that most of my peers (and my own kids) get Oedipus Rex, we skipped that one. I wonder if it was because of all the sex in Oedipus, or if the writer of the curriculum just liked Antigone better. Whatever the case, Mr. Collins made sure we knew the backstory before we read the play. (As I said, a bit subversive.) Whatever the reason, though, I was moved by Antigone, and was thrilled when our local university announced that they would be doing it this fall. 

***SPOILERS FOLLOW***

Antigone’s story is both of its time, and timeless. In the aftermath of Oedipus’ death, his sons Eteokles and Polynikes quarrel over the throne. After initially agreeing to alternate years, Eteokles clings to power. Polynikes raises an army and attacks. Both brothers die in the ensuing battle, and Oedipus’ brother Kreon takes the throne. Kreon decides that Polynices’ actions are treason to the city of Thebes, and forbids the burial of his body. I admit some ignorance of Greek thought, but at least to our modern minds (and perhaps to the minds of the Athenian audience the play was directed at) it seems a bit unfair to consider the deal-breaker the good guy, and the other brother the bad guy. 

In any event, Antigone, who is the sister of the two brothers, is horrified at the decree, and takes action - a scandalous thing for a woman to do in that era. She buries her brother, and mourns his death. She then defies Kreon to his face, asserting that Divine Law (as she believes it) to be superior to his human law. Kreon is furious, and orders her shut up alive in a tomb, to die of thirst and starvation. Kreon’s son, Haimon, who is in love with Antigone, please with his father to be reasonable, citing (in addition to personal and moral reasons) the fact that the citizens of Thebes are horrified by his action. This leads to a tremendous fight between the two.

After a soothsayer prophesies doom to Kreon, he has a change of heart, and goes to release her. It is too late, however, as she has hung herself. The damage doesn’t stop there: Haimon, caught between his love for Antigone and his duty to his father, also commits suicide. In despair over the loss of her son, Kreon’s wife, Eurydike, kills herself, leaving Kreon alone - and he goes mad. 

While the specifics of the story may seem a bit outdated - we don’t have kings or primogeniture in 21st Century America - the themes resonate. Both Antigone and Kreon have valid points. Antigone is certainly right that Kreon’s law is unfair and cruel. She is also right, in theory, that sometimes a higher law supersedes a lower law. Whether one considers it a divine decree, or a moral principle, it can and should justify civil disobedience. On the other hand, Kreon is right that if everyone did what they saw fit, rather than followed the law of the land, anarchy would result. After all, humans find agreeing about what the gods want to be an impossible task. 

As the Thebeans and the soothsayer point out, however, the best way is neither anarchy nor cruelty. Laws should be just, and if they are not, they should be changed. Admitting one’s error isn’t weakness (as Kreon insists), but an actual strength. Kreon realizes this too late, and is destroyed by the consequences of his stubbornness. 

Antigone is stubborn too, of course. She knows she will likely die as the result of honoring her brother’s body. But at least Antigone has solid reasons for her actions. She sees through the arbitrary assignment of fault, and insists that morality requires respect for the mortal remains of both of her brothers. She believes the gods require that corpses be treated with respect, and not left for the animals to gnaw. While we may not believe in Zeus and the rest, we moderns generally agree that even the bodies of executed murderers deserve a decent burial. 

There is something awe-inspiring about Antigone. In a highly patriarchal world, she has the huevos to take on the most powerful man in her world. She never flinches, she never blanches, she never cries. She just takes her badass self right up to Kreon’s grill and kicks his butt with her rhetoric. 

This particular production is worth mentioning for several reasons. First, CSUB used the new(ish) Anne Carson translation as the basis for the production. This version is not an attempt at word-for-word translation, but as much a re-imagining of the play. The speeches are much shorter. The total length is just over an hour. There are anachronistic allusions to Hegel and Beckett, as well as modernity in general. But there are also some darn fine lines, and Carson’s experience as a poet makes the play much more, well, poetic, than the usual prose translation. It isn’t rhymed or metered verse, but a modern, free-verse poetry that feels thoroughly unlike prose. 

There are two things that I particularly loved about Carson’s version. First, by updating not just the language, but the way of talking about ideas, she made a play that my kids (even my youngest) could follow without difficulty. Second, the update brings out facets of the drama that might have gone unnoticed, such as the misogyny of Kreon, and his opportunistic lust for power. Both of these were not important to the ancient Greeks, but they strike modern audiences as crucial elements of the tragedy. Sophokles probably intended that we be horrified by Antigone stepping out of her lane, even if she is right. But we can understand her actions not just as “woman is so stricken by disrespect of the gods that she has to act like a man” but as “part of Kreon’s problem is that he thinks he knows better than women.” 

On that note, I must commend Avery Gibson for her outstanding performance in the title role. She commanded the stage whenever she was on it, and brought a simmering fury that could be felt to the last row. I hadn’t seen her in anything before, although she was in a BC production of Into the Woods that the rest of my family saw a few years back. I’d love to see her in other roles. I should mention my favorite line from the play, which is spoken by Antigone about the horror of an unburied body: “sweet sorrymeat for the little lusts of birds.”

Kreon was portrayed by Brian Purcell, who has been in a bunch of local plays and musicals, most recently Crazy For You at Stars. His natural style is kind of a “boy-next-door gee shucks” sort of thing, so this role was something entirely different. I liked the way the character evolved from the seemingly reasonable and calm statesman to the increasingly angry, unpredictable, and paranoid madman. His Kreon was a bit more likeable than average, although it was a bit more difficult to see the calculating politician. The result was that Kreon seems less drunk on power and more a misguided “play by the rules” sort, obsessed with a black and white worldview, in which there are too few shades of grey. 

Other notable performances in smaller parts were Alexandria Dennis as the hapless and humorous Messenger, Amanda Duke as the jaded soothsayer, and Alberto Pelayo as Haimon. 

The use of the Chorus was creative. The members wore masks, and commented both individually and in groups, throwing the poetry around the stage, and deadpanning some great lines. I really enjoyed the way it was done - it made the chorus seem like its own work of art, and not just there to comment and carry the action forward. 

Finally, the set was amazing. It combined a desert wasteland with a decaying Southern mansion. Both the conception of the design and the many hours that must have gone into construction were impressive. 

CSUB has done some intriguing things with drama lately, from the gender-flipped The Importance of Being Earnest to the intimate Eccentricities of a Nightingale. Bakersfield has a thriving arts community, and the future looks bright with so many talented and well-coached young actors coming up through the ranks.  

 

The wonderful set. Bootleg picture by Peter Wonderly.

 Kreon (Brian Purcell), Antigone (Avery Gibson), and Messenger (Alexandria Dennis)

CSUB publicity photo

 Antigone (Avery Gibson), Ismene (Maya Blackstone), and Chorus.

CSUB publicity photo

***

Note on spellings:

I am using the spellings CSUB used for the play, which I believe were also used by Carson. In substituting “k” for the traditional “c,” the correct pronunciation is more obvious. 

Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

This book is part of out not-particularly-systematic exploration of the Newbery Award winners and honor books. Kira-Kira won the award in 2005. In addition, this book is part of my personal project as homeschool dad and aspiring decent human being to introduce my kids (and myself) to books written by non-white authors. 

Cynthia Kadohata was born in the 1950s in Chicago. Because her father was of Japanese heritage, he was unjustly imprisoned in a concentration camp in Arizona during World War II. This, and her experience of racial prejudice, influenced her treatment of the American experience in her books. 

Kira-Kira is her first childrens, or perhaps young adult novel. 

To start with, let me note that this book is achingly sad. The central event is the death of the narrator’s older sister from cancer. A dying kid is not the easiest topic to address, clearly, no matter how well written the book is, it is rough. (I particularly speak as a parent here, in that the death of a child is an unimaginable horror - even though I have friends who have experienced it.) In addition, the book looks at other rather serious and unpleasant realities. Racial prejudice - particularly in the American South. Exploitation of workers. Trauma in general. These are heavy topics for a kids book, and make for a book which isn’t exactly “pleasant.” 

That said, I have been thinking a lot about this book after listening to it on our most recent vacation. There are so many truly outstanding things about the work that make it a worthy Newbery winner - and a good choice to experience with kids. 

First, last, and most important is the voice of the protagonist, Katie Takeshima, the middle child in the family. I think the highest praise I can use here is this: it was easy to forget that this book is fiction, because Katie feels so incredibly real. She narrates the book throughout, and starts with memories as a toddler, progressing as the book goes on to her middle school years. She is utterly believable and human, never lapsing into “angelic” territory, being “wiser than her years” as a stand in for her adult self, or (and this is a huge thing) having some epiphany which makes everything better. She is, at all times, a human child, feeling fully human emotions - and ambivalence, and responding to trauma in the way we all tend to: with a mix of healthy and unhealthy reactions. 

In this sense, I think the cover blurbs and most of the online promotions rather gloss the point of the book. The title refers to a Japanese term for “glittering” or “shiny.” But the doomed Lynn means a deeper idea: the way that water, the stars, and human eyes shimmer and both reveal and conceal depths of meaning. This idea runs through the book, from Katie’s earliest memories to her determination to seek a positive future in the wake of devastation. In the blurbs, the impression is given that Katie takes this inspiration and is enabled to put her broken family back together. That’s not really the way it goes down. Katie and her parents all have to reconstruct their broken lives after the devastation of Lynn’s death. And Katie is as injured as anyone and has no magic that the others lack. Rather, they all have damage and yet a will to carry on. 

There are some particular moments which stood out in this regard. First, while it is obvious that Katie worships Lynn, who is (I believe) 4 or 5 years older, Katie also struggles greatly with living in Lynn’s shadow. Lynn is the “genius,” outstanding in school, beautiful, so very kind to her younger siblings, and the most promising of the kids. Katie is so very ordinary by comparison, and this reality dominates her life. 

The next moment is related: when Lynn becomes a teenager, Katie realizes that Lynn thinks of her as a “little kid,” not the equal friend that Katie believed she was. (And, to be fair, the way that the relationship worked before puberty.) This is where I believe the book is exceptionally realistic. There is no true epiphany or even reconciliation between Lynn and Katie. Their close relationship is never the same - even at the end. Life imposes changes, and our original nuclear family becomes secondary to our later bonds, whether friendship, marriage, or children. This particular transition was not entirely successful in my own family, and a lot of heartache has resulted from expectations that new spouses and children-in-law would become an extension of already dysfunctional family dynamics. 

Also highly realistic is the denial of catharsis when it comes to Lynn’s illness and death. Lynn never becomes the Victorian “dying angel,” a blessing to all around her. Rather, she is angry and difficult - she is a teenager dying in an unfair twist of fate, and she isn’t happy about it. She deals with her pain like most of us do. Sometimes by withdrawal as we lack the emotional strength to do more than survive, sometimes by lashing out at whoever we can. There is a devastating scene near the end where Lynn and Katie - once the inseparable Takeshima sisters - tell each other they hate the other. There is no cute reconciliation. They both are exhausted, as are the parents, and life goes on. They do talk again, but Katie remains haunted by what went down, and has no chance to really fix what she said, because Lynn is gone. Again, thoroughly realistic - painfully so. And, mind you, this is in the context of sisters who genuinely DO love each other and are trying. 

Like the children, the adults are human, flawed, and complex. There is a lot of nuance in this book, and Kadohata, despite telling the story from a particular point of view, shows empathy for the various characters and the way they are buffeted by circumstance. 

There are other hard realities in this book. The Japanese-American kids (in the 1950s) are never really accepted into white Southern society. Lynn’s white friends abandon her as it becomes clear she is dying. (They don’t even bother to come to the funeral.) The older generation never really gets a chance to integrate - even as they resist cross-race friendship and the real risk and vulnerability it would require. Medical bills threaten to bankrupt the working poor. The abusive labor practices continue - although unionization is on the horizon. Workers are indeed expected to wear diapers because toilet breaks are not allowed. Hard work and cruelly long hours lead to subsistence, not security. (Ah, the good old days of capitalism…) 

There are some more optimistic notes, however. Katie’s uncle, Katsuhisa, is a force of chaos and energy, who ends up helping Katie more than her own parents can. The relationship between Katie and Lynn is beautiful, even in its sad and troubling end. Katie does eventually make a real friend - a white girl who comes from poverty and deprivation herself and can love without judgment. 

The writing itself is very good, evocative of the best in psychological perceptiveness, and artistic in its descriptions. Kadohata somehow made aching sadness beautiful in the way only true artists can. 

One final thought: I hinted at this earlier, but I think the bravest part of the book is that Kadohata denies the very idea of “closure.” There is no true closure or catharsis in grief. This is true whether it is the loss of a person to death, the loss of a relationship, or even the loss of a community. (Such as my own losses of relationships and the loss of my faith community.) Life goes on. We carry on. But there is a hole which will never be filled. Katie (and her parents) will never be the same after Lynn’s death. And Kadohata makes that crystal clear. We don’t so much heal from trauma as we learn to compensate for it. Like a tree struck by lightning, we continue to live, but the scars remain, and our shape will never be symmetrical again. That’s life. And that’s being human. You can’t just make margaritas out of lemons. Kadohata gets this, and incorporates it into this book. This is not the voice of despair or depression - it is the voice of an optimistic realism. Even in tragedy, there is beauty. Indeed, beauty itself isn’t the lack of flaws, but, as Keats said, the presence of truth. 

***

As I often do, I want to mention the audiobook. The narrator on our edition was Elaina Erika Davis, a television regular, and frequent audiobook narrator. (Perhaps the most famous was Memoirs of a Geisha.) She seems rather at home both with Japanese words and with Southern dialect - a fascinating combination that was definitely necessary in this book. She had to strike a delicate balance, as the book itself notes that Lynn and Katie end up talking with a Southern accent, but most of the narration isn’t in dialect. Thus, most is read “straight,” with the southern accent used only where dialect is used in the book. 

  

The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown (Empty Space 2019)

This is one of those plays I had never heard of but decided to go see just because it was an Empty Space production and I had an evening free with my date. It also sounded like an intriguing concept.

The basic idea is that there are two actors, portraying Jamie and Cathy, a couple who meet, fall in love, get married, grow apart, and split up, all within five years. Their stories are told in reverse order, so Jamie starts his with them falling in love, while Cathy starts hers with the aftermath of the breakup. As the play progresses, they meet briefly in the middle, during the wedding. Then, we see his progression toward the breakup, while her story goes back in time to the beginning.

Furthermore, there is essentially no dialogue, and nearly everything is told through song, not spoken lines. It is an interesting way of putting a play together - but also a challenging one to pull off. The hardest part, in my opinion, is creating chemistry when the two actors are rarely on stage together, and when they are, the either interact solely through acting, not dialogue, and are often even at different places in the story. The second hardest part is pulling off the challenging music. More about that later.

Jason Robert Brown wrote this play - and the music and score and everything - it is essentially a one-man show. That is pretty impressive from the level of difficulty. Wagner, of course, did the same thing, although his were decidedly longer and more turgid, although they contained some of the most transcendent music of all time. There are pitfalls to this approach, however. One of which is that generally either the music or the poetry is good, but rarely if ever both. In this case, I think both had some issues. The music was sometimes a bit too obscure to serve the plot, and the stream-of-consciousness lyrics were sometimes a bit hard to follow.

The play was apparently inspired (if that is the right word) by Brown’s own failed marriage. When the play first came out, she threatened to sue him. He changed one song so it wasn’t quite as obviously autobiographical. The irony of this is that Brown actually wrote the play so that “his” character, Jamie, is pretty unsympathetic. Bluntly, he is an asshole most of the play, obsessed with his career, callous about Cathy’s own failures, and fully expectant that she will be the little trophy wife and go to all his publicity stuff with him. And then, he cheats on her, and then complains that “I could never rescue you.” Ouch. I have to wonder if Brown’s ex-wife actually listened to the play, because she comes off as the better person.

The Empty Space took an interesting approach to the casting. They cast two actors in each role, and then used each combination - a total of four - for different nights. In addition, while two women (Megan Jarrett and Ellie Sivesind) played the part of Cathy, the role of Jamie was split between male and female (namely, Alex Mitts, and Baeleigh Bevan.) This meant that there were two opposite sex couples, and two same sex couples. I was only able to see one particular combination - Jarrett and Bevan - so I cannot say how the other combinations worked. Although it is safe to assume that each combination had a different feel to it. 

 Ellie Sivesind and Alex Mitts

 Megan Jarrett and Baeleigh Bevan

One of the advantages of seeing this performed by a same sex couple is this: all the stupid male privilege and entitlement looks a bit different when it is a woman doing it. So, as a great example, one of the better songs, “A Miracle Would Happen,” is Jamie’s experience being the popular guy that all the girls hit on. Seriously. Read the lyrics. Jamie is a total asshole, and it sounds even more horrifying when it is a woman singing the lyrics. (Blame my gender essentialist upbringing for my response to that.) Once you strip away the “boys will be boys” and the wink and nudge about supposed male sexuality, and see a woman treat another one that way, it is pretty clear that it is just atrocious behavior.

I should mention the other really clever song, “Audition Sequence,” which is brutally honest about the pressure that theater puts on women.

As a musician, I did find the score to be fascinating. The style is pretty broad, from pop and rock to jazz, classical, and klezmer. And within that, the keys are ambiguous and rapidly modulating, the time signatures and tempos variable. As a result, the vocal demands are really high, and the songs difficult to pull off. The instrumentation is sparse and eclectic: piano, acoustic guitar, bass, violin, and two cellos. At first, I thought is was a string quartet - because the one cello essentially takes the role of both viola and second violin. Which means you had better have a badass cellist. TES has no space for live musicians, so it was a recording. I would have love to play this score, though, challenging as it would be. It is quite impressive how Brown covers the various musical genres without a drummer. In my opinion, the score is the strongest part of the musical for that reason.

The downside of this, though, is that the vocal demands are really high. I’m hardly a great singer, and couldn’t even fumble my way through this. But as a violinist, I know enough to see the difficulty level. The venue didn’t help, either, as TES doesn’t use microphones, and the audience is a full 270 degrees, so it is imperative that vocalists make sure every nuance comes through.

So, even though I hate to say something negative about a local production, the vocals were a weak point. Specifically, there were times when Bevan simply could not be heard. We were seated at stage right, and when she turned to the left, we just lost the voice completely. This was particularly an issue when the song took her down into the low range, or when there were a lot of those stream-of-consciousness lyrics where every word is crucial. So, for her opening song, “Shiksa Goddess,” I didn’t figure out the key point that Cathy isn’t Jewish - which is why Jamie’s mother is going to freak out in a way that she wouldn’t even if Cathy came from an incestuous family. I just lost too many of the lyrics to get the picture.

To be fair to Bevan, she was covering a “male” part, so the low range may have been a struggle for her anyway. And then add the difficult pacing and often unusual syntax, and I sympathise. I got the impression that she actually sings quite well, but that this had just too many difficulties for her to overcome. That said, I will forgive a lot, but I have to be able to hear the lyrics. On the plus side, I thought Bevan did a fine job of making Jamie a more nuanced character, not just the jerk his part suggests.

Jarrett was better. I think the range was more comfortable for her, and she just belted it out. I will give particular credit to her for some extended notes that she held without going the least bit flat. Because I have played enough music theater to have winced at plenty of otherwise outstanding performances which suffered from at least one note that deflated by the end.

Singing aside, I thought both actors did pretty well considering they rarely got to interact. The format is interesting, to be sure, but does make it difficult to really see if there is chemistry between the actors. As with the songs, I would have liked to have seen if any of the other combinations made a strong connection despite the challenges.

With the flaws aside, I do want to give TES credit for trying unusual works, and not just recycling the same 20 favorite musicals and plays. Not everything always comes together perfectly, but credit for taking some risks.

One final note: as usual, TES has such creative sets in a small space. The whole exploding clock thing was excellent. Credit to Brian Sivesind and Jesus Fidel for their design - and to the small army of volunteers who bring every set to life.

The Vagrants by Yiyun Li

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

It’s hard to believe it has been over five years since I read Gold Boy, Emerald Girl - Yiyun Li’s second collection of short stories. Since then, I have recommended them to a number of literary sorts, and I still think they have a unique and moving voice. I grabbed this book, her first novel, on a whim at the library. 

For better or worse, this is a difficult book. It begins with the execution of a young woman for political dissent, and ends with plenty of tragedy and betrayal. But it is also moving - and important - as well as fascinating and well written. Yiyun Li immigrated from China in the 1990s, and her experiences - and those of her parents - shape her writing. The trauma of the Cultural Revolution, the “Great Step Forward,” and particularly Tiananmen Square left impressions on her, and her fiction is set during these turbulent times.

The Vagrants is a novel, but it feels much like a set of interconnected short stories. The execution of Gu Shan reverberates through the lives of various people in the fictional small city of Muddy River, for better or worse. The stories all connect through that nexus (and others) despite their separate threads.

The theme in my view, is the way that a totalitarian society puts ordinary people in impossible situations, so that they predictably betray each other to save themselves. It is Game Theory in action. The game is rigged so that individuals gain - or at least lose less - if they turn each other in, even if that means fabricating “crimes” against the state in their neighbors. By banding together, it is more likely that they could force change, but the risk to any one person is too great, and the likelihood of betrayal practically inevitable.

Yiyun doesn’t write one-dimensional characters. There aren’t many heroes, and few true villains in this book. Rather, people have complicated and ambiguous motives and actions. In what has to be one of the best reversals I have read, the “golden boy” - the little boy with the good heart - ends up with one of the least comfortable futures, with his desire for approval leading to questionable actions and results. The flip side is the malignant idler Bashi, who starts off trying to find a girl he can screw - or rape if necessary. Except that once he finds the vulnerable crippled girl, he finds he can’t follow through on his plans, and ends up discovering a purpose outside his own selfishness. Both of these results are unexpected, and Yiyun makes the changes utterly convincing.

Like in Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, the overwhelming feeling one gets is one of aching loneliness. The system - particularly in combination with the old patriarchal beliefs that never went away - isolates everyone from each other. When you can’t trust your neighbor or your family, how can you have intimacy? And yet, there are some people and some moments where this occurs, and the scenes are total gems of character writing. The title characters, the two childless old people who take in the infant girls abandoned to die at the edge of town - they are bright spots of love. The moment when old Teacher Gu, whose wife has been arrested, finds an unexpected friend in a neighbor below his social circle. And this, after the man’s wife tries to destroy Teacher Gu.

As fair warning, I do need to say that this book is plenty traumatic. Yiyun throws a glaring light on one of the most sickening human rights violations of the Regime: dissidents would be held in prison, given genetic tests, then executed when their organs matched the needs of a powerful person. In some cases, the organs were removed while the person was still alive. This is pretty well documented, actually. Unsurprisingly, the most common victims were ethnic and religious minorities. (Human nature sucks so much, a lot of the time.) There are also some disturbing sexual elements, such as the creepy old man who saves corpses for burial (rather than cremation, as mandated by the Regime.) And severs the breasts and genitals of female corpses for his collection. But perhaps the worst is finding such a connection with characters that you just know are going to suffer.

Yiyun’s writing isn’t just good, it’s beautiful. I kept going back and re-reading passages just for the loveliness of the phrasing. It seems like a paradox, for the story to be so horrifying even as the writing is gorgeous.

I also want to talk a bit about totalitarianism, as this book really brought together a lot of my own thoughts on the subject.

In the right wing circles I used to run in - and to which a good number of friends and family still belong, Communism is used as a political weapon, a shibboleth of orthodoxy, and above all as a conversation ender when it comes to political discussions. The problem is that the essential core of Communism is misunderstood - or perhaps misrepresented.

In essence, as the argument goes now, the only two options are the totalitarian communism of Stalin or Mao on the one hand; or the anarcho-capitalism, the economic libertarianism (better described as social darwinism) of Ayn Rand. Thus, anything that smacks of wealth redistribution, a public sector, or regulation, is tarred as “Communism,” or at least “Socialism,” and the horrors of Mao and Stalin dragged out as the argument why we can’t have, to choose a common example, single payer health care. (Or fill in the blank with, say, a higher minimum wage, stronger unions, food stamps, or even Medicare and Social Security.) As soon as you start talking about inequality and the common good, clearly the Gulags are inevitable.

Suggest that maybe things might look more like, say, Sweden (or fill in the blank with another first world country…) rather than the Soviet Union, and you get called a pinko rather fast.

The same thing happened, of course, to the leaders of the Civil Rights movement. Desegregation meant death camps for whites, right?

Of course, for those of us with a Fundie background, “atheism” (with the biggest of scare quotes) was blamed for both Communism and Nazism. But also in there is the idea that the core of Communism is economic. That is, Communism is synonymous with any attempt to address inequality. Touch inequality, and you end up with the Gulag.

I think this very much misses the point. There is a reason why certain nasty regimes resemble each other so much, despite totally different economic philosophies. To give some examples, Nazism (a nasty right wing movement based on racial hatred, religious supremacy, reactionary gender roles, and militant nationalism) turned out to be strikingly similar to Stalinism (a nasty left wing movement based on class hatred, atheism, egalitarian gender roles, and militant nationalism.) And both are strikingly similar to the military dictatorships of Pinochet and Gaddafi. Or the far-right Islamist dictatorships like the Taliban or ISIS - and Iran and Saudi Arabia. Or the kleptocracies of South America. Or even the Roman Empire. The connecting thread for all of these isn’t economic theory - it’s totalitarianism.

Which is ALL about power.

It is about the power to control people’s lives, and deprive them of human rights. You can see in all of these the naked fact that speaking out against power is forbidden, and results in severe punishment, including death. The central idea is that one must never question authority, and that one should surrender one’s personhood in favor of the whims of those in power.

That’s why both hard right and hard left regimes resemble each other more than they resemble the democracies of the first world. That’s also why life in a fairly right wing democracy like the United States is fairly similar in many ways to life in a fairly left wing democracy like Sweden. Sure, there are differences, for better or worse. But in both, we can count on being able to speak out politically without getting whacked.

This is why it is pretty absurd to say that we will be one step from the gulags if we raise taxes so we can have universal health care. (And for that matter, tax rates on the wealthy are far below where they were in the 1950s, often held up as the zenith of American society by the right.) It’s also absurd to say that expecting employers to pay a living wage and provide benefits (like many of those 1950s corporations did - thanks to unions) will lead to the secret police. And also why it’s absurd to say that regulations keeping large companies from destroying the environment will lead to executions for political beliefs. It’s naked scare tactics divorced from any truth of history or even the present.

The Vagrants really brings this home.

In the Chinese society if the 1970s - after the disaster of the “Great Step Forward,” which led to mass starvation, and after the purges of intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution - the economic system actually looks a lot like it did before, just with different people at the top. Class differences haven’t gone away. “Capitalism” still mostly exists in a slightly different form - for the people at the bottom. After all, the upper classes (Communist leaders) are still fabulously wealthy, the middle classes have secure jobs, while the lower classes must find a way or starve. Hey! That sounds not that much unlike, say, every human society in history. Funny how that works. In that sense, Yiyun portrays a thoroughly recognizable society.

But things do look different from another perspective. Because of the totalitarianism, dissent is dangerous at best.

In what has turned out to be an interesting (and to some, surprising) development, modern China has become rather more economically free, while remaining politically repressed. Who knew? You actually can have capitalism and billionaires and stuff - and still have a totalitarian society. It really isn’t primarily about economics...

What struck me most about this is just how right Raymond Aron was. I have mentioned it before, but one of the best books I have read is Aron’s The Opium of the Intellectuals, wherein he points out that both Communism and Nazism are - above all - religions. Sure, they lack the traditional Supreme Being™, but the substitute impersonal forces. In Communism’s case, The End of History™.

In The Vagrants, this really comes out. Early in the book is the “denunciation ceremony” for Gu Shan. Attendance is mandatory for most people - and children. The stadium is filled, and there are hours of motivational speeches (sermons!), patriotic songs (hymns!), and praise of the Communist Party. “Without the Communist Party, we would have nothing!!”

Perhaps the most chilling moment comes in the propaganda delivered by a teacher to the children.

“[O]ur party has never been wrong and will never be wrong.”

That’s a cult.

That’s the sort of shit that you hear from toxic religions of all sorts. “We are always right and have never been wrong and will never be wrong.” The beginning of the end for me with Evangelicalism (in retrospect), came with a smug and self-congratulatory sermon from our former pastor. In which he basically made this argument.

This is how you get to “kill anyone who disagrees.” It’s when your dogma - whatever the hell that dogma is - is viewed as infallible. As Solzhenitsyn pointed out, to kill by the millions you need an ideology.

It doesn’t matter what that ideology is. It could be Marxism. It could be Aryan Supremacy. It could be anarcho-capitalism. It could be religion, whether radical Islam, or radical Christianity.

Steven Pinker, in his excellent book (which has been a huge influence on me), The Better Angels of Our Nature, described how ideology leads to genocide:

Utopian ideologies invite genocide for two reasons. One is that they set up a pernicious utilitarian calculus. In a utopia, everyone is happy forever, so its moral value is infinite. Most of us agree that it is ethically permissible to divert a runaway trolley that threatens to kill five people onto a side track where it would only kill one. But suppose it were a hundred million lives one could save by diverting the trolley, or a billion, or - projecting into the indefinite future - infinitely many. How many people would it be permissible to sacrifice to attain that infinite good? A few million can seem like a pretty good bargain. Not only that, but consider the people who learn about the promise of a perfect world yet nonetheless oppose it. They are the only things standing in the way of a plan that could lead to infinite goodness. How evil are they? You do the math.

The Vagrants brings this out one hundred percent. Including the part about those opposed to the Communist Party being vermin. In the same section, the school children are instructed that “counterrevolutionism” is a infectious disease, and that it must be cleansed by the strongest disinfectant. Which means killing a few people, but whatever.

You will see this in every totalitarian system. And that includes the white nationalism of Donald Trump, where immigrants and refugees are referred to as contaminants, vermin, disease, and so on.

It ultimately comes down, not to economic theories, but human rights. Do all humans, regardless of race, national origin, religious belief, political belief, sex, gender, sexual orientation, and so on, deserve human rights? Or not. That’s why universal health care, or tax rates, aren’t a slippery slope to the gulags. But calling the press the “enemy of the people” is. It’s why Social Security isn’t some nefarious plot to enslave workers. But eliminating workplace protections is. It’s why telling billionaires that they can’t have an increasing share of the world’s wealth isn’t one step away from show trials for dissidents. But calling for violence against protesters is.

I am a conservative (in the traditional sense) by temperament. I am not a risk taker, generally. I prefer a quiet life, with my books and music and kids and cat. Because of that, I am not at all interested in starting a revolution. I prefer reform and correction and incremental change. I prefer data and facts and evidence over theories, for the most part. Sure, try stuff, but do it carefully, and make corrections as you see what does and doesn’t work.

Yiyun has some similar ideas about revolutions, and I truly loved how she put them. First is what I believe is a Chinese proverb. It is fantastic, if cynical as hell.

“The one who robs and succeeds will become the king, and the one who tries to rob and fails will be called a criminal.”

This fatalistic proverb recurs throughout the book. It guides the actions of many characters - if they can just succeed, whether through theft of through betraying their neighbors, they will be king in their own way. But if they fail, it is catastrophe.

The last one I will mention comes from Teacher Gu when he is talking with his neighbor Guosheng near the end of the book. Liberated from his filters by some booze, he goes on a rant against revolutionaries in general. I don’t agree with all of it - Teacher Gu is a reactionary in his own way, wishing women were more submissive, and that the world was like it was before the Revolution. (I sympathize with him on the second point - life was better for him when he had his freedom, his books, and the respect his intelligence and education deserved.) But this line stood out:

“[B]ut what is revolution except a systematic way for one species to eat another alive? Let me tell you - history is, unlike what they say on the loudspeakers, not driven by revolutionary force but by people’s desire to climb up onto someone else’s neck and shit and pee as he or she wants.”

Dang. That’s both depressing, and all too true. Our current racist right wing movements are driven in some part by legitimate grievances. But they are also driven by the prurient desire to be “better” than someone else. “We may be poor, but at least we aren’t [fill in the blank: n-----rs, immigrants, gays, whatever]”

Ultimately, after reading this book, what I longed for more than anything, is the utopia of what I thought America was. And still is from time to time, occasionally, and with some people. I want the freedom that we (mostly) have. But I also long for the community of commitment to the common good. I know that hasn’t really existed for many in our nation, but the idea has existed for a long time.

And, come to think of it, I long for the utopia promised by the teachings of Christ. A world where hierarchy and power are replaced by mutuality. Where there is true freedom to live our lives, because each of us acknowledges the inherent worth of the other. Where we treat the most vulnerable not as infections to be purged, but as worthy of the love and care we would give to Christ himself.

I have, I suppose, gotten off the topic a bit. But I think it fits. Yiyun’s chilling tale isn’t just about “those Commies over there,” but about us as humans. Our tendencies toward ideological thinking, the ease in which we humans can be motivated to hate each other, and the way that power is a destructive force, no matter what its justification.

Yiyun Li is a great writer - one of my favorites I would say - and although her books aren’t necessarily easy or pleasant, they are important, and give a real insight into our world, and our common humanity.

***

I’m pretty sure I have posted this before, but I have to do it again here. This has long been one of my favorite Beatles tunes, and not just because of those gorgeous Epiphone Casinos.

You say you want a revolution

Well, you know

We all want to change the world

You tell me that it's evolution

Well, you know

We all want to change the world

But when you talk about destruction

Don't you know that you can count me out

Don't you know it's gonna be

All right, all right, all right

You say you got a real solution

Well, you know

We'd all love to see the plan

You ask me for a contribution

Well, you know

We're doing what we can

But if you want money for people with minds that hate

All I can tell is brother you have to wait

Don't you know it's gonna be

All right, all right, all right

You say you'll change the constitution

Well, you know

We all want to change your head

You tell me it's the institution

Well, you know

You better free your mind instead

But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao

You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow

Don't you know it's gonna be

All right…

And, no matter how “Christian” you call yourself, if you want me to participate in promoting “minds that hate,” well, you can go to hell.

Coriolanus by William Shakespeare (Theatricum Botanicum)

By my count, I have seen 27 of Shakespeare’s plays live. That leaves me 11 to go. It will probably be more difficult to see those, as I am getting into the back catalogue. (Also not helpful is that the Utah Shakespeare Festival is doing the Henry VI plays this year and next, and, while my wife will be able to go, it’s not really feasible for the kids and myself to do so - it will probably be a while before they return to them. Possibly decades. Oh well.) Still, I have managed to add a few more obscure ones over the last few years. I also plan to see the plays I have seen again - the kids have only seen some, and will appreciate them differently as they get older as well. Shakespeare has something new to say each time - he never gets old.

Coriolanus is one of those rarely-performed plays. Every year, we check to see what the local colleges and small theaters are doing. But we also keep our eyes on a few others in Southern California. One of those is Theatricum Botanicum. This quirky outdoor theater has a habit of performing lesser-known works, along with their continually-running version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A few years back, that included All’s Well That Ends Well, and Moliere’s The Imaginary Invalid. When I saw that Theatricum was doing Coriolanus, I knew we had to go see it.

Coriolanus is not a particularly well known play. Many are at least familiar with the name, however, because of Beethoven’s fantastic overture. (See below.) Coriolanus was written right after the great tragedies, and it does suffer a bit in comparison. The characters are less fully realized, the protagonist is unlikeable, and the theme fell a bit flat at the time. It is not Shakespeare’s finest play - but it still has a lot to offer.

First, what is this play about? Like Julius Caesar, the story is drawn from Plutarch’s Lives. As with the other, Coriolanus quotes Plutarch (as translated by Sir Thomas North) nearly verbatim in places - North’s language was plenty poetic. However, unlike Caesar, there was probably no real life Coriolanus, at least as described by Plutarch. By that time, Coriolanus was more of a legend in the vein of, say, Robin Hood. He served Plutarch’s purpose by serving as a counter-example to the Greek Alcibiades.

In the story, Coriolanus (real name: Caius Marcius) is a war hero of Rome back in the early days. Rome was a mere city-state at the time, in perpetual war with its immediate neighbors. The previous monarchy had been recently abolished, and Rome was ruled by the Consuls, joint rulers appointed by the Patrician aristocracy. Marcius wins a famous victory (despite questionable judgment), and is expected to be one of the next Consuls as a result. But he has to win the approval of the commoners - the Plebeians.

Therein lies the problem. Marcius (now dubbed “Coriolanus” - the site of his victory), hates the rabble, and thinks he shouldn’t have to kiss up to them. After all, he deserves what he gets - he has bled for Rome. Things do not go well. Although he gets the vote, his condescension sours many on him, and the newly appointed Tribunes (representatives of the Plebeians) stir up the people against him. A cool-headed Patrician, Menenius, is able to prevent a lynching, but with a promise that Coriolanus will appear in person for a proper trial on the charges of treason (for his threat to strip the Plebeians of their liberty.) Coriolanus is spared the death penalty, but is banished. He sulks off, eventually joining forces with Rome’s biggest rival, and leads an army to sack Rome.

He is persuaded to come to terms of peace by his mother, but is then killed by his rival.

That’s your basic plot. However, as is typical for Shakespeare, the real action is in the psychology.

Coriolanus, like many a tragic “hero,” is undone by his fatal flaw of pride and arrogance. (Hubris, to use the Greek term.) It isn’t difficult to see how Coriolanus became the way he is, though. His mother, Volumnia, is the dominating figure of the play. She has raised Coriolanus to be a war machine, eager for glory in battle, and full of pride. He is, so to speak, the perfect Spartan - which is not a compliment. Early in the play, an exchange involving Coriolanus’ wife Virgilia is telling. Little Marcius Junior has been seen tormenting (and eventually tearing apart with his teeth) butterflies. And Grandma says he is just like his dad. Isn’t that nice?

Because of this upbringing, Coriolanus cannot find empathy in himself. He obsesses over his honor, and his rights, and cannot see other perspectives. This is particularly obvious in his approach to the common people.

At this point, a little background is also helpful. (Special thanks to Isaac Asimov’s delightful book on Shakespeare for the information.)

The Plebeians weren’t just the underclass. At the time of the founding of the Roman republic, they were made up of the peoples that the city-state of Rome had conquered. The “true” Romans were the Patricians, and the others were the Plebeians - the ones who did the dirty work of growing the food, serving as foot soldiers, and other lower-status jobs. The Patricians literally depended on the Plebeians for survival, while resenting them as “inferior” foreigners. The Plebeians weren’t too thrilled about the state of things either. Under the monarchy, they enjoyed some degree of protection. Not so much in the early Republic, when the Patricians reserved for themselves virtually all of the economic and political rights. The Plebeians were expected to render military service without compensation for the damage caused by war or absence to their farms. If they couldn’t pay debts, they ended up as slaves.

This was not, shall we say, sustainable. The Plebeians rose up and demanded representation. Which they got, in the form of the Tribunes. This wasn’t true political equality, but it was a start, and the Roman Republic survived (as have many modern democracies) by granting political rights to a greater proportion of the people.

Coriolanus is not a fan of these reforms, to say the least. He complains (and is overheard) that by granting the Plebeians rights when they demand them, they have made a mistake. Better, in Coriolanus’ view, to have used force and violence to beat them into proper submission.

Shakespeare’s handling of this idea is fascinating. Coriolanus is believed to have been performed, not at the Globe, but at Blackfriars, which was a smaller theater. Crucially, ticket prices were high at Blackfriars, so the audience was exclusively aristocratic - no commoners to contend with. This was also around 1609 or so, when King James I was on the throne. Students of history will recall that James was a big proponent of the Divine Right of Kings.

So, Shakespeare writes a play to be heard by the nobility at a time when monarchical power was on the rise. And he writes...this. Sure, there are some mean jabs at the riff raff. But overall, the theme is a rather pointed jab at aristocratic arrogance and violent suppression of dissent. Shakespeare had some huevos.

In addition to his arrogance, Coriolanus suffers from a lack of self control, and a lack of an inner life of the mind. He reacts rather than think. He cannot control his mouth. He cannot see other perspectives at all. This makes him vulnerable to manipulation by his rival and enemy counterpart, Tullus. He is also manipulated by his mother. And also by the Tribunes, who know just how to push his buttons.

As I noted, this isn’t Shakespeare’s finest tragedy. But it actually has aged pretty well. (In many ways, better than The Merchant of Venice.) In fact, I think it resonates better in our time than in Shakespeare’s. While by his day, England was at least a fledgeling constitutional monarchy, it was far from the democratic nation it would later become. Or even the limited monarchy with significant freedoms it would become 80 years later after the Glorious Revolution. Shakespeare was looking ahead in many ways, as well as backwards to an earlier experiment in democratic government.

There are a few facets here that also seem particularly applicable to today. I think the recognition that the Patrician/Plebeian dispute was in part racially driven is interesting. In our own times, there is a common and egregious error made when speaking of our own political divisions: Trump voters are not the lower income classes. Rather, they are - statistically - above average in income, and, most importantly, overwhelmingly white. They are the Patricians of our nation, used to having  particular status and dominance, which they saw threatened by a black president and erosion of their privilege. And the Trump sorts are similar to Coriolanus, raging that they are not given the respect and status they believe they deserve by right of birth. Trump is no military hero. (He has succeeded at the American version though: he is rich. We worship money rather than glory.) However, like Coriolanus, he scoffs at protesters, and calls for violence to teach them gratitude. Rather than listen to the voices of the true Plebeians, they call to burn the political and social institutions to the ground in revenge. It’s something to think about.

Also thought provoking is a line near the very beginning of the play. The “First Citizen” is leading the rabble in a demand for the Patricians to share their grain hoards with the Plebeians. He seeks confirmation that they are united in their purpose:

You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?

This gets to the heart of it. Death by violence sucks. Death by starvation or privation is, if anything, worse. Particularly if you are watching your children die. Coriolanus fails to understand this. He figures he can just increase brutality until he gets submission. But humans will fight for their lives, and for the lives of their children. And the degree of brutality and hate necessary to keep them down will only increase, eventually to the breaking point. Our own Right Wing would do well to remember this, and seek rather the path of reconciliation.

I do want to mention a few lines. Coriolanus isn’t full of zingers like the best known plays. But it has some good lines. Unsurprisingly, in a tragedy, often the lines that stand out the most are the humorous ones. Unlike Richard II, which has zero comic relief, Coriolanus does have some moments of mirth.

One came fairly early in the play. Coriolanus’ mother and wife are talking about his imminent departure for the war. Mom is ecstatic: he will win more glory! Wife, not so much, as she is worried he might get himself killed. So, she decides not to leave the house until he returns safely. Mom retorts:

You would be another Penelope; yet, they say, all the yarn

She spun in Ulysses’ absence did but fill Ithaca full of moths.

My wife is a knitter (and a really good one.) I did give her a snarky glance at this line, though.

The second great humorous moment is at the opening of Act II, Scene III. The Tribunes have just finished their plot to stir up the crowd against Coriolanus. Three random citizens (Citizens One, Two, and Three) are joking about upcoming speech by Coriolanus as he tries to win their support.

First Citizen

Once, if he do require our voices, we ought not to deny him.

Second Citizen

We may, sir, if we will.

Third Citizen

We have power in ourselves to do it, but it is a

power that we have no power to do; for if he show us

his wounds and tell us his deeds, we are to put our

tongues into those wounds and speak for them; so, if

he tell us his noble deeds, we must also tell him

our noble acceptance of them. Ingratitude is

monstrous, and for the multitude to be ingrateful,

were to make a monster of the multitude: of the

which we being members, should bring ourselves to be

monstrous members.

First Citizen

And to make us no better thought of, a little help

will serve; for once we stood up about the corn, he

himself stuck not to call us the many-headed multitude.

Third Citizen

We have been called so of many; not that our heads

are some brown, some black, some auburn, some bald,

but that our wits are so diversely coloured: and

truly I think if all our wits were to issue out of

one skull, they would fly east, west, north, south,

and their consent of one direct way should be at

once to all the points o' the compass.

Second Citizen

Think you so? Which way do you judge my wit would

Fly?

Third Citizen

Nay, your wit will not so soon out as another man's

Will; 'tis strongly wedged up in a block-head, but

if it were at liberty, 'twould, sure, southward.

I certainly snorted at this one. But take a second look. Shakespeare’s “fools” are never as foolish as they might seem. These commoners are far more self aware than Coriolanus. They actually speak pretty knowledgeably about the interaction of sentiment and duty, of custom and its breaches. They know that if Coriolanus plays his part: talks of his sacrifices for Rome, shows his scars, and asks nicely for support, they would be breaching etiquette to refuse. They also are keenly aware of his condescending attitude, though, and consider alternatives. Again, unlike Coriolanus, they are also aware of the weakness: they don’t coordinate and act together all that well.

Plus, as is well proven by research, puns are associated with intelligence - and this trio comes up with three good ones. (Or bad ones, take your pick…) Shakespeare, arguably the greatest writer in the English language (or any language perhaps) in history, was a fantastic punner, and given his love for puns, placing them in the mouths of the commoners was a sign of his respect. And that “blockhead” one. Dang, that’s good.

It is worth mentioning a bit about the production. Theatricum is a mostly professional group, with at least half of the actors in any production members of the Actors’ Equity Association. However, their stuff always feels a bit quirky, rather than slick and mainstream. (Particularly intriguing was their version of All’s Well That Ends Well where they cast African Americans as the aristocrats, and whites as the servants. Since the play is about a cross-class romance and “bed-trick,” this made for some uncomfortable and thus perceptive frisson.)

This production was no exception. The theater is outdoors, and makes use of the topography of the canyon. In this case, various members of the large cast ended up on the roofs of the buildings - including the sound booth - and occupied the space all around the audience. It did make one feel in the middle of the battles, and also part of the Plebeian multitude.

As usual, the cast was excellent; professional, emotive, loud enough for the venue, and invested in the characters.

I specifically want to give props to certain characters. David De Santos was outstanding in the title role. His was not a sympathetic character, but he inhabited it in a highly believable way. His was no caricature, but a real - if flawed - human. I loved his rage and pride. I think the term “brutally handsome” applies here as well. 

 David De Santos as Coriolanus

(Publicity photos by Ian Flanders)

Opposite De Santos, as the leader of the rival tribe, was Max Lawrence, a regular at Theatricum, who showed real chemistry with De Santos. The two of them are mortal enemies, frenemies, and worthy foes in the militaristic tradition. It was easy to see both as the sorts that would inspire their troops on the battlefield.

Max Lawrence (center) as Tullus Aufidius

Ellen Geer played Volumnia, Coriolanus’ mother. And she owned the part and the stage whenever she was on it. Between the creepy Oedipal stuff and the malicious edge, she made sure the audience knew she was the fulcrum on which the play turned. 

 Ellen Geer as Volumnia and Michelle Wicklas as Virgilia

The two Tribunes, played by Tim Halligan and Alan Blumenfeld, were also perfectly cast. As petty demagogues, playing at populism while failing to anticipate its risks, they had the proper snide and unctious vibe. I felt like I knew them: you find their sort in every HOA or small town city council. (Blumenfeld was phenomenal last year as Shylock - I could watch him in any part.) 

 Tim Hallihan (left) as Junius Brutus and Alan Blumenfeld (center) as Sicinius Velutus

One final actor deserves special credit. Melora Marshall played the moderate politician Menenius. She has been in every Theatricum production we have seen, playing a rather astonishing variety of parts. In this one, the part has been switched to a female part. However, in past productions, she has played a male part with such veracity that my kids were fooled. In another, she filled in as an understudy, and I couldn’t imagine a better job. Seriously, I would pay to see her in anything. Humorous or serious, small part or large, male or female. She is simply a good actor who can command the stage in any role. 

 Melora Marshall (center) as Menenius

Coriolanus runs the rest of the summer, and I highly recommend seeing it if you get a chance.

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For those who care, Shakespeare plays I have seen live at least once:

Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2, Henry V, Richard II, Richard III, Pericles, Coriolanus, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, All’s Well That Ends Well, As You Like It, Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Merchant of Venice, Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and A Winter’s Tale.

Still to go:

Henry VI Part 1, Henry VI Part 2, Henry VI Part 3, Henry VIII, King John, Measure for Measure (I’ve at least read this one…), Antony and Cleopatra, Cymbeline, Timon of Athens, Titus Andronicus, and Troilus and Cressida.  

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Beethoven for the win. This was actually written for Heinrich Joseph von Collin's version of the story, not Shakespeare's. But few if any care about Collin's version. The harmonic language in Beethoven's version is fascinating - particularly in the middle section, which departs from the root key in a long digression which is only brought back to the center by creative and unexpected paths. Enjoy. 

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Also, Cole Porter gives a mention to this play…