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Current News: We cannot thank you enough Howard Zinn for all you have done.
Read Reviews of Performances below!
Howard Zinn's play "Marx in Soho" Performed by Jerry Levy in San Francisco was a Smash Hit! By Bonnie Weinstein
With nothing more than a frock coat and a few small props, Jerry Levy's energetic performance of Howard Zinn's masterful play, "Marx in Soho" presented by Bay Area United Against War at the Sims Theater for the Performing Arts, brought a giant of a man up close and intimate with his audience. That Marx was addressing the audience was never in question. Not only does Levy look like the many photographs of Marx, but throughout his performance the honesty and integrity of a man that cared so much about the toilers of the world comes through. Levy's portrayal of Zinn's Marx brought the audience back to his past. All the while keeping note of the similarities between then and now. As Marx sees it, after 120 years of just being able to watch, the deepening of the class conflict in today's world reaffirms the correctness of his analysis of the capitalist system. His predictions of what would come without a world socialist revolution areproven correct.
Levy's Marx is old and plagued with boils but his mind is as sharp as a tack. He describes how he and his family struggled against extreme poverty, experiencing the ravages of capitalism first hand. Three of his five children fail to survive the harsh conditions of their life in Soho. He is a loving father and husband. He is a good and true friend of all who struggle, even when he disagrees with them on some basic point. He is intolerant of those that make his life's work a fetish and condemns those who have, "put their own comrades against a wall and shot them" under the guise of communism. But he never strays from his basic premise that capitalism is the root cause of human suffering, then and now, and has to go.
If you are already a socialist you walk away from this play convinced of the importance of your own work to further the ideas of Marx. If you were not a socialist before, when you walk away from this play you are strongly inclined to give Marx a second and third look.
As Marx himself rhetorically asks in the play, "Why do they (the capitalists) feel it necessary to declare Marx dead over and over again?" The audience comes away from this play knowing why.
For more information about the play and Jerry Levy go to: http://www.levyarts.com/index.html
Review of MARX IN SOHO
Sacramento, California
It's weird to experience a topic like political economy as anything but dry and boring. It's even stranger to expect that an academic professor of sociology could entertain a crowd with historic lessons of the origins of economic contradictions and deep-seated social troubles. Yet Marlboro College sociologist and Brattleboro, Vermont veteran actor Jerry Levy did just that in a one-man show of Howard Zinn's Marx in Soho.
Jerry Levy is on academic sabbatical to professionally act this year, touring with his rendition of Zinn's surreal return of Karl Marx to earth, 120 years after his death. Zinn does not spare Marx of his warts and boils, but characterizes the divine presentation of Marx as a sort of 'second coming'. The world metaphorically shares Marx's proverbial case of boils, and needs to go beyond historical report of the ills of the world, to “get up off its ass?, to change the world.
What's promising about Levy's interpretation as Marx in Soho is what he injects emotionally into the character of Karl Marx. It's refreshing to see and hear an actor make such an important historical personage like Marx, reviled by the West yet lionized by the South, seem so very human, despite his eerie return. Jesus would have made it, but declined. Marx has unfinished business, however.
There are lessons to be learned, and Professor Levy insists upon telling them. He catechizes about praxis, surplus value, and the brutality of
revolutionary dogmatism. What's novel about his thespian endeavors is that he has presented this work in the Dominican Republic with an accompanying Spanish language powerpoint translation. One can only shudder at the empowering conscientiousness engendered at such a proletarian production.
See this play. Contact www.levyarts.com. Then get up off your asses. After all, boils can be painful.
Review by Michael Monasky at thegeneralwelfare@yahoo.com
Marx in Soho, Zinn at Brandeis
By Noah Klinger, Special to the Hoot
Marx in Soho, a one-man show written by prominent historian and political scientist Howard Zinn, was performed on campus Thursday, Mar. 3. In the role of Marx was actor/sociology professor Jerry Levy, who sported 19th-century dress, an inscrutable German-British accent, and a full beard for the occasion. Zinn himself was in attendance, noted by Brandeis professor Gordon Fellman (SOC) in a short introduction he gave to a near-capacity crowd at the Pollack Auditorium.
‘Marx in Soho’ turns on the intriguing conceit that Karl Marx has been given an hour and a half to return to earth to defend himself, which he does via a loosely organized lecture and performance. Marx spends much of the time with denunciations of capitalism, and his fury over the corruption of his ideas.
At one point he burst out: “Everyone – the media, the politicians, the education system – they all say capitalism has triumphed. But triumphed over whom?”
Spread among the political issues there are plenty of stories about Marx’s personal life mixed in, including stories about a myriad of health problems (especially the recurring boils on his posterior which made sitting agony for him) and about his family.
Probably the play’s most tender scenes are anecdotes about his youngest daughter Eleanor. Marx fondly recalls how she broke the law which prohibited working on Sunday by holding a concert for 2,000 people. At this concert musicians played Handel, Mozart and Beethoven.
The police could do nothing and Marx notes “[I]f you’re going to break the law, do it with 2,000 people. And Mozart.”
The show ended with Marx’s time on earth running out and this final thought: “I still have hope for the future. We all just need to get off our asses and DO something,” He said. “Here’s an idea: once in a while, pretend as if you have boils. Refuse to sit down or stand still.”
After Levy took his bows, he and Zinn stayed for a brief question and answer session about the future of the free market and socialism. Zinn referred to capitalism as “a sick system” and responded to a query regarding the failure of such Communist states as China and the Soviet Union by saying “Certainly human nature has tremendous capacity for terrible things. But there is greater capacity for kindness, compassion, affection and love…. people have to be coerced, bribed, threatened, and incited to have any part in [war].”Howard Zinn is the author of numerous books and histories, including A People’s History of the United States. He is well known for his ‘alternative history’ writings and radical left-wing politics. A documentary about his life, You Can’t be Neutral on a Moving Train, was released on DVD in 2004 but is not widely available.
The show was sponsored by the Sociology Department and directed by Michael Kennedy.
Marx in Marlboro, by Kevin Kennedy
Heavyset, bearded, long-haired and leftist, the similarities between German philosopher Karl Marx and Marlboro sociologist Jerry Levy are rarely lost on anyone. It took art’s mimicry to bring the two lives completely together this spring when Jerry starred in the one-man show, Marx in Soho.
“In watching him onstage, I didn’t feel there was a difference between Jerry the person and Jerry the actor,” reports retired Marlboro professor J. Birjepatil, who has worked with Jerry in the classroom and directed him on the stage. “In the lives of professional actors, you occasionally find a role in which the actors play themselves. With Marx in Soho, Jerry walked into a role in which he’d found his intellectual autobiography.”
Birje is quick to point out that the Karl Marx in Marx in Soho is not the fire-breathing working class warrior many have come to view him as, noting that in the play, written by historian Howard Zinn, Marx pokes fun at how his philosophy has been twisted by individuals and governments in the years after his death. Zinn’s Marx is committed to the humanistic ideal of all people living equally, without suffering the economic hardship that is inevitably imposed by the state. “That’s the place where Jerry’s personal philosophy and Marx’s philosophy converge,” Birje says.
Jerry appreciates the comparison, but doesn’t agree with it. “People felt I was bing myself, which I consider a great compliment, because I wasn’t,” he says. But he admits that “there’s enough of me that has the same kind of compassion and anger that Marx had.”
The perennial candidate of the leftist Liberty Union Party says the show offers and important message to its audience. “At this particular time we need to identify with historical figures who offer a sane and positive approach to the world,” he says. “I feel that Zinn’s vision of Marx is a very timely vision, because the world we live in is so insane.”
Marx in Soho was directed by Michael Kennedy and opened to full houses at Marlboro’s Whittemore Theater and sold out Brattleboro, with Jerry receiving standing ovations at each performance. He hopes to have the opportunity to present the performance again, and notes that anyone interested in booking the show should contact him at the college. “It was arguably one of the most fulfilling roles I’ve ever had.”
Jerry Levy Brings Zinn to Bradford
by Louise Sandberg
Bradford – Last March in Thetford, the Parish Players presented Emma, a play about union organizer Emma Goldman by historian/writer/playwright Howard Zinn. Last week another play by Zinn, Marx in Soho, was performed in Bradford at the Middle Earth Music Hall, and it showed again that Zinn-the-historian is as entertaining as Zinn-the-playwright is informative, and that, as a matter of fact, Zinn is downright riveting in both aspects.
The central theme of Marx in Soho is unique: heaven’s bureaucracy allows Karl Marx more than a century after his death in 1883 to return to Earth to the place where he spent most of his adult life, namely London’s Soho. The bureaucracy makes a mistake, however, and he finds himself in New York’s Soho and in front of an audience to boot.
The single actor in this one-man play is Jerry Levy, who has been teaching sociology at Marlboro College and been acting with the Actors’ Theater of Brattleboro since he moved there from Chicago in 1975. Originally directed by Michael Fox Kennedy of the Actors’ Theater, Levy has been on the road with Zinn’s version of Karl Marx for a year, performing at benefits, colleges, small theaters and other venues around the state. At Middle Earth he was sponsored by the Bradford-based Coos Peace and Justice Alliance and performed free of charge but charged with mighty talent and a bottomless love of the play.
Asked in a brief interview before the performance how Marx tied in to the goal of peace, Levy described him as anti-war and pro-democracy, and noted that the play brings out his human qualities.
Yes, Marx has gone down in history as a rather dangerous social philosopher and political economist, and is associated with forms of communism and totalitarianism that resulted in bloody revolutions and wars around the world. But the Marx that came to like of Middle Earth’s small stage was a man with warm memories of his bohemian life in Paris, with deep feelings for his wife Jenny and their children and the life they led in London, and with much compassion for the poor in the harsh conditions of capitalistic mid-Victorian England.
Between Zinn and Levy, this Marx’s feistiness has mellowed, and he sprinkled whimsical humor among tough lines like “Telling the truth is revolutionary,” and his musings. “Is there anything more boring than reading political economics?” Marx in Soho asks at one point, answering it promptly himself. “Yes –writing about it.”
More than once his audience shook with laughter, but other times the responses in the packed room were a deep hush, or suppressed agreement with his anger, or profound amazement at who this Marx had been: very human indeed.
In the end, Zinn illustrates exactly what has been written about Das Kapital: “No mere work of dry economics, Marx’s work depicts the unfolding of industrial capitalism as a tragic drama.” The Karl Marx who finds himself in contemporary New York lashes out at the same conditions there that he had denounced a century and a half ago in London. He sees a society “poisoned with commerce and greed” and is disgusted with the sight of extremely wealthy persons ignoring the homeless and hungry people in the streets of that city.
But at the very end Marx in Soho also says, “Something new is bound to come of this – hope,” and so his bitterness at seeing his prophecy come true turns into a sweet hope. Levy was given a standing ovation, and although he had to be at Marlboro College early the next morning, he stayed a while longer to soak up Middle Earth’s earthy ambiance, replenish himself with a hearty bowl of soup, and talk with enthusiastic admirers.
Marx in Soho’ sheds light on social theorist
by Molly Gilmore-Baldwin for the Olympian
When he first encountered Howard Zinn’s play “Marx in Soho” Jerry Levy realized he’d found his perfect role.
“Friends gave me this play to read, and I fell in love with it,” said Levy of Vermont, who will be performing the one-man play tonight in Olympia.
“I’ve been an actor for 30 years. I’m also a sociologist at Marlboro College; I’ve been teaching Marx for 40 years, as well as other social theorists. I’m also something of an activist.
“And I have a striking resemblance to Marx,” he added. “An actor is always looking for a good part, and this is a part this is just perfect for me.”
It’s also a part – and a play – with a lot to say about America past and present, no surprise if you consider that Zinn is best know as the author of “A People’s History of the United States,” which turns traditional history on its head, telling it from the perspective of blacks, women, American Indians and other groups whose voices were ignored at the time.
In the play, which Levy has performed about a dozen times to enthusiastic audiences, Marx petitions to leave the afterlife to explain his theories and life to an audience in Soho (the one in New York, although he’d intended to go to Soho, London, where he developed many of his theories).
The play sheds new light on Marx and his theories – which are presented factually despite the play’s whimsical premise.
“He’s telling this story about his life, trying to set the record straight,” Levy said. “He te3lls how and why he became a revolutionary, that he’s not a totalitarian and that he believes in democracy.
“He also comments on the present, trying to show that his ideas are still relevant. The problems that he saw in the 19th century are still here at the beginning of the 21st century,” he said. “Zinn wrote it about the time of the fall of the Soviet Union, when Communism was being declared dead.”
The play came to Olympia largely by coincidence, as Levy is visiting friends in the area. But he intends to take the production as far as he can – even perhaps to Europe when he has a sabbatical.
“I’ve done it in houses, theaters, settlements houses and union halls,” he said. “It’s very portable.”
Indeed, Tradition isn’t generally a venue for theater.
“We’ve had some kids’ plays, the Heartsparkle Players’ Playback Theater and some improve come3dy, but not really plays, said café owner Dick Meyer. “It’s going to be interesting.
“Fortunately, because it’s a one-man show, the props are going to be minimal.”
But Levy hopes the show’s impact won’t be. “I see it as education for those who know nothing about Marx or who have been mislead by society about his idea,” he said, “I also see it as a kind of support for people who disagree with the direction that society is going in. It will make people feel better and maybe help them to be willing to struggle on for what they believe in. whether they’re socialists or not.”
Marx’s story is inspirational, he said. “This was a man who made a difference. We can make a difference.”
Howard Zinn play looks at Marx as an activist and as a man
By William Menezes for the Brattleboro Reformer
If history’s great thinkers and philosophers were able to return to the present day, what would they say about how their ideas have been used or abused?
Brattleboro’s Acting on Impulse theater company is giving Karl Marx his night on stage, as seen through the prism of Howard Zinn’s one character play “Marx in Soho.” With Gerald Levy in the role of Karl Marx, the production will run April 2 and 3 at Marlboro College’s Whittemore Theater and April 9 and 10 at Brattleboro’s Hooker-Dunham Theater and Gallery.
Zinn is one of the more enduring symbols and eloquent spokesmen of the American Left. His “People’s History of the United States” is still the most popular alternative to the traditional histories found in high school civic classes.
In his enlightening forward to the script he explains his reasons for writing the play, “I wanted to show Marx as few people saw him, as a family man, struggling to support his wife and children.” Zinn wished to present Marx not just as a theorist but as activist. As it became popular to proclaim Marx dead after the fall of Communism, Zinn felt it important to show that Marx’s critique of capitalism “remains fundamentally true in our time.”
In a recent interview with Levy and “Marx in Soho” director Michael Fox Kennedy we talked about the play. Kennedy is best known on the local theater scene for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in his one-man show, “Even We Here.” Levy, professor of sociology at Marlboro College, is a familiar presence on local stages, most recently as Weller in “The Gin Game.” Incidentally, both men bear uncanny resemblances to the characters they portray.
Levy said that he became “captivated by Howard Zinn’s play” when it was suggested to him by Barbara and Stan Charkey. “Zinn’s script portrays Marx with 100 years of perspective. He comes back during his afterlife and is angry how his ideas are being interpreted. And he’s frustrated that his beliefs are misrepresented and allied to a totalitarian state. He wants to clear his name.”
Levy, who considers himself an independent socialist and anarchist, said, “I’m having fun with the play. The script is very compelling and engaging. Not only do you see the relevance of his ideas, bu you learn what kind of man he was. He loved his wife and daughters and enters into lively debates with them over issues of feminism and the Jewish question. It is a humanization of Marx. He loves classical music and Shakespeare and believed in democracy. So it is more than just a blistering critique of capitalism.”
Like all one-character plays, it offers a particular challenge for an actor. Levy has been working on the script for six months. “It takes that long to get those lines down. If you are portraying just one character, you don’t’ have anyone else’s energy to feed off of. You need to provide all the energy yourself.”
Kennedy who has achieved significant success with his one man show, was engaged to direct Levy. They met through Thomas Griffin who helped Kennedy shape his Lincoln show. They contemplated working on Waiting for Godot,” but that idea was abandoned when Levy read “Marx in Soho.” At first they started working once a week, but that soon expanded.
Kennedy said that will all one-character plays “the challenge for the actor is to provide the audience with variety – the punctuation, the different voices, the tones, and personality. You have to find the multiple characters in the character. Marx has different voices. The actor has to show Marx’s outrage at social injustice, express the pedantic Marx, the vindictive Marx, Marx,
A special thanks to all those who have made this possible. Without your generosity & enthusiasm this show would not have become what it is.
This project is done in collaboration with The Communal Spring. For info please check out their web site:
www.communalspring.com
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