I am my own wife
Just saw a preview of the Broadway transfer of Doug Wright's very exciting new play "I am my own wife". If you're around New York, don't miss this. It's bound to be the most substantive thing on Broadway this season. The one man show starring Jefferson Mays follows the history of a transvestite and antique collector who managed to survive through the Nazi and Communist regimes in Germany, although contention over her complicity with the GDR is one of the play's central questions.
It's an eloquent reminder of how many stories revealed to us through the lifting of the iron curtain have yet to be told, even if it may seem like old news these days. The questions of conscience and survival are only slightly more than a decade old, but we fear missing their vital lessons in a media afflicted with dangerous levels of ADD. These stories teach us about the fine political gradations possible in societies that appear one-note, and the awful choices which everyday people must make to live with themselves and their worlds. If we applied a little more of this thinking to the Middle East, rather than pretending like we just discovered it, the debate over terrorism, democracy and Islam would be infinitely better informed.
It's an eloquent reminder of how many stories revealed to us through the lifting of the iron curtain have yet to be told, even if it may seem like old news these days. The questions of conscience and survival are only slightly more than a decade old, but we fear missing their vital lessons in a media afflicted with dangerous levels of ADD. These stories teach us about the fine political gradations possible in societies that appear one-note, and the awful choices which everyday people must make to live with themselves and their worlds. If we applied a little more of this thinking to the Middle East, rather than pretending like we just discovered it, the debate over terrorism, democracy and Islam would be infinitely better informed.
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