My Kickstarter Campaign for a new, OWS inspired adaptation of the classic story.
When: Now.
Where: A decrepit, abandoned Occupy Wall Street encampment.
What: A Christmas Carol.
Why: WTF?? ANOTHER CHRISTMAS CAROL ADAPTATION?? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AREN'T THERE ENOUGH?
No.
Charles Dickens wrote this masterpiece as an activist challenge to a vicious caste system that saw the terrible oppression and living conditions of the workers as their natural state, just as it judged those persons of wealth as naturally superior. At a time when families were being thrown off farms, and the Industrial Revolution was creating a new class of urban workers, the plight of these new, working class families was desperate. But with no social net, no Welfare State, these families suffered miserably, while those who profited from their work ruled with a sense of God-given right to wealth and rights the workers could only dream of.
This is the past of Industrial Capitalism, and what Dickens protested against with his work.
This is also the world we are returning to: And a world of robber barons hoarding wealth for the sake of wealth, and a government wholly owned by corporations. Along side this abundance and power we have workers living hand to mouth, without Unions to defend them, a social contract to protect their basic rights, or a Welfare State to guarantee their old age.
This is our present and could be our future if we don’t act.
So how is this "Christmas Carol" going to be different?
Unlike the other ones, this "Occupy" Christmas Carol is not designed to comfort the affluent, making them feel good about being marginally less horrible than Scrooge. Its about the rest of us.
In 1843 Charles Dickens wrote an amazing story that spelled out, in a clear, entertaining way, the inhuman effects of the new system that was sweeping England - Industrial Capitalism. Since then the same wealthy people Dickens indicted for their selfishness and inhumanity have hijacked the story, changing it from a powerful expose of the oppression of the working class to a fun-filled story about a greedy old codger's reclamation - from a story about the impoverished millions oppressed by a system that literally saw them as grist for the mill, to a theatrical cash cow about the One Bad Man who, when he changes, guarantees a Merry Christmas for all. Dickens wrote an activist story about uplifting the People, and it has been mutated by the Rich into a story designed to make the them feel good about themselves.
I think its time to reclaim this story for the rest of us - for the 99% who don't have Scrooge's dough, the 99% who live the lives of the Cratchits.
So I wrote this adaptation: A group of folks, unemployed and ignored by by society, are putting on their version of Christmas Carol. Full of folk and traditional labor songs, telling the facts and history behind the story, I think this Carol is closer to what Dickens intended - a fun but harsh indictment of a system that enriches the few at the expense of the many.
(Here's an article from the L.A. Times about the adaptation.)
A bit of bio: I'm the Resident Playwright for the Tony-award winning, never silent, always radical San Francisco Mime Troupe, and the guy who wrote the stage adaptation of "1984" which Tim Robbins directed for the Actor's Gang Theatre - and which has been tour the world for the last 6 years. But that doesn't mean I have dough to produce a play. I'm just a working-class man.
So if you are interested in helping me get this new, activist production on its feet please click here. Remember - Kickstarter is a pledge site, which means your donation will only go through if I raise the full amount.
And let's face it; even if I was willing to take some corporate cash to fund this show - like so many theaters are forced to - there is no way they would fund a show that portrays them as the life and soul crushing boot of Capitalism they are.
So it's up to us.
Thanks.