– From everyone at Unbearable Nonsense.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
American Life
I live the American dream.
Photo from Cherry Lane Theater's production of Edward Albee's "American Dreams".
Photo by Sara Kurlwich/NyTimes.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Camp X-Ray / Sarah Kane
Excerpt from a February 2003 transcript of Canadian military officials interrogating 16 year old Omar Khadr, a Canadian national imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. Khadr is accused of killing an American soldier. Published in the September 2008 issue of Harper's:
Omar Khadr: [His hand covers his face; he lifts up his shirt to reveal wounds.] My arms and all of these—it’s healthy? I requested medical over a long time. [Sobs.]
Male Official: I’m not a doctor, but I think you’re getting good medical care.
Khadr: No, I’m not. You’re not here. [Sobs again.] I lost my eyes. I lost my feet and everything.
Male Official: No, you still have your eyes, and your feet are still at the ends of your legs, you know. Look, I want to take a few minutes, I want you to get yourself together, relax a bit, have a bite to eat, and we’ll start again. I understand this is stressful, but using this as a strategy to talk to us is not gonna be any more helpful. We’ve got a limited amount of time, and we’ve heard this story before.
Khadr: You don’t care about—
Male Official: I do care about you, but I want to talk to the honest Omar I was talking to yesterday. I don’t want to talk to this Omar. Look me straight in the eye and tell me you’re being honest.
Khadr: I am being honest.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/09/0082157
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
Excerpt from Blasted, by Sarah Kane, 1995:
Soldier: You never killed.
Ian: Not like that.
Soldier: Not. Like. That.
Ian: I'm not a torturer.
Soldier: You're close to them, gun to head. Tie them up, tell them what you're going to do to them, make them wait for it, then . . . what?
Ian: Shoot them.
Soldier: You haven't got a clue.
Ian: What then?
Soldier: You never fucked a man before you killed him?
Ian: No.
Soldier: Or after?
Ian: Course not.
Soldier: Why not?
Ian: What for, I'm not queer.
Soldier: Col, they buggered her. Cut her throat. Hacked her ears and nose off, nailed them to the front door.
Ian: Enough.
…
The prescience of Sarah Kane's writing continues to astonish. Blasted's dialogue often uncannily presages the U.S. military's questionable ethical conduct during recent exploits (i.e. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay.) Her play also renders pained and uncompromised conflict into universal, human terms, with a clarity and precision that avoids oversimplifying or naively sensationalizing her characters and the play's subject, a nascent and incomprehensible civil war.
Blasted is currently being performed at SoHo Rep:
http://www.sohorep.org/current.html
See also Sarah Kane: Complete Plays.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
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