"Marx in Soho" w/ Jerry Levy

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9 ай бұрын

Jerry Levy performed "Marx in Soho," Howard Zinn's one man play portraying the return of Marx, on October 8 and 9, 2005 at the opening weekend of The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy NY.
Written by Howard Zinn and directed by Michael Fox Kennedy.
Video produced by Jamie Kay and Penny Lane for the Hudson Mohawk Independent Media Center.
www.mediasanctuary.org
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Embedded in some secular afterlife where intellectuals, artists, and radicals are sent, Marx is given permission by the administrative committee to return to Soho London to have his say. But through a bureaucratic mix-up, he winds up in SOHO in New York. From there the audience is given a rare glimpse of a Marx seldom talked about; Marx the man. The play offers an entertaining and thorough introduction to a person who knows little about Marx’s life, while also offering valuable insight to students of his ideas. Author of "A People’s History of the United States," Howard Zinn humanizes the man behind the ideas in "Marx In Soho"; casting a divergent light from the totalitarian movements his theories have often been associated with.
Responding to the fall of the Soviet Union and the conventional perception that Marx’s ideas are dead, Zinn resurrects this controversial historical figure, embraces democracy and passionately rejects the ideological rigidity of many of his followers with the phrase “I am not a Marxist.” Instead we come to know Marx as a complex character struggling to survive with his family as an impoverished immigrant in London. Marx returns to clear his name and tell us about his life with his wife, daughters, friends and enemies. In a poignant, funny, and intimate narrative, Zinn convinces us not only that Marx is not dead but also that his critique of capitalism is more than relevant today. Howard Zinn’s Marx alone occupies the stage. “Marx has different voices. The actor has to show Marx’s outrage at social injustice, express the pedantic Marx, the vindictive Marx, Marx the loving family man, Marx as a humorist, and a Marx that can laugh at his enemies.”