How theater should respond to a democracy in meltdown
How should artists respond to a nation in crisis? Playwrights and their collaborators, not wanting to be the proverbial fiddler sawing away as Rome burns, have had no choice but to contemplate their responsibility in a year of stark political turmoil.
Since Donald Trump was elected president, America has undergone a savage transformation. Institutional norms have been flouted, ethical constraints have been ignored, constitutional principles have been muddied, and longstanding alliances have been kicked to the curb.
The theater, the most public-minded of the arts, has quickly answered the call of duty. Playwright Robert Schenkkan composed on crunch deadline "Building the Wall" to address what he saw as the imminent dangers of Trump's anti-immigration policies. Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore made his Broadway debut in "The Terms of My Surrender," a thrown-together variety show intended to buck up the resistance's morale.
