The Revolution Will Be Dramatized

[Dancing_Dave]

"In an election year marked by fiercely entrenched viewpoints and unbudging polls, does anyone think a few Margaret Cho jokes about Halliburton can sway swing-state voters? Or that Billionaires for Bush can provoke class-warfare epiphanies with polo mallets and Thurston Howell III shtick?

Artists are mobilizing in historic numbers for the Republican National Convention, volunteering for duty in the Imagine Festival of Arts, Issues, and Ideas, the Unconvention, and other specially organized programs that offer opportunities to sing, act, dance, joke, and otherwise comment on the current state of the disunion."

CLIP

"Actors act, filmmakers make films, photographers photograph, and Bruce Springsteen (bless him) sings," says actor Kathleen Chalfant. "We're all offering whatever gifts we have to the gods. No one knows whether it will have any effect. But it's what we can do."

Like the Boss, who's not only writing op-eds but also headlining the recently announced Vote for Change concert tour, Chalfant, a stage veteran best known for Angels in America and Wit, puts her talent where her political commitments are. An adviser to Theaters Against War (THAW), she's starring in the British documentary drama Guantánamo, an exposé of the detainee situation (which begins previews Friday at the Culture Project), and will also appear in an Imagine Festival reading of Sophocles' Elektra with Marisa Tomei at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts on August 30. "Everyone I know feels the absolute necessity to be politically engaged during this period," she says in soft, deliberate tones. "We all honestly believe that if we don't stop, or mediate, the direction in which our country—and therefore, unfortunately, the rest of the world—is moving, there will be a disaster."

CLIP

"Another spur to the radical resurgence has to do with turf: Why pick a Democratic town for a Republican convention during one of the most hotly contested presidential races in American history? A ground zero backdrop featuring Republican basset hound Rudy Giuliani obviously proved too irresistible a photo op for Bush & Co. It's easy to understand the accompanying smorgasbord of cultural dissent as a colorful countermeasure to the elephants' Big Apple gala. Call it a PR monkey wrench. "

Read the rest at http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0433/mcnulty.php

I get the feeling that at least the days when there can be a Republican Mayor of NYC and a Republican Governor of New York state may be about over. And that would be enough to make a difference in how things go.