Photo: T. Charles Erickson

A recent article in the New York Times pointed out that the United States’ war in Afghanistan remained “just a blip on the American news media’s radar in 2011.” The exact amount of coverage, in statistics from the Project for Excellence in Journalism, was given at 2 percent. Perhaps it is not surprising that the scope of the dealings that led to our involvement in that country are below-the-radar as well.

Blood and Gifts, a play by J.T. Rogers, creates a full overview of the issues and choices that were the precursors to our current situation. Commissioned by Lincoln Center Theater, and presented last year at the National Theatre, Blood and Gifts is currently being performed at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater through January 8.

Inserted into the Playbill, audience members received a printed supplement outlining the background for the action about to unfold. Furnishing a bare bones history, it explains that Afghanistan “occupies the only access from Central Asia to the West.” With the Cold War heating up, the nation became of geo-political interest.

Aspiring to modernize, Afghanistan asked the United States for aid. When America declined, they then reached out to the adjacent Soviet Union—who assisted them in the role of “ally” for thirty years. In 1979, when the U.S.S.R. perceived that Afghanistan was going to create a partnership with America, they invaded.

It is against the backdrop of an active battle between the Soviet forces and the people of Afghanistan that Blood and Gifts is set. A full range of characters is introduced, including operatives from the CIA, the British MI6, the KGB, and Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI—as well as representatives from the national struggle. Each one has a very specific agenda.

The initial set is bathed in tones of blue, from the large square carpet to the six wooden benches placed along three sides. A lone suitcase sits on the floor. The actors enter, dressed in costumes ranging from suits to the turbans and mountain garb of the mujahideen.

The narrative is both riveting and instructive. The acting is top-notch. I reached out to J.T. Rogers to get additional insights into his process and endeavors in “theater that engages the public realm.”

This is not the first play where you have written about a political situation. Previously, in The Overwhelming, you tackled Rwanda. You have frequently noted that your father taught political science, and as a boy you lived in Malaysia and Indonesia. How has your background informed your choice of material?

I read an interview with Marsha Norman twenty plus years ago in which she made an observation that’s always stuck with me. She said that there are two kinds of American writers: Northern ones, who are both able–and go out of their way–to reinvent themselves; and Southern ones who know, no matter how far they travel, they will always be called home. I’ve always seen myself in the first camp, but now I’m not as sure. I was raised by divorced parents, spending much of each year both in central Missouri with my father and in the East Village. The constant in both homes was a passionate engagement in politics and a deep knowledge of and interest in other countries–both my parents having lived, together and apart, all over the world. As a playwright, I spent many years working through and then shedding different skins, trying to find my voice and the subject matters that truly gripped me. It’s only with hindsight that I understand that what my parents exposed me to, and what they raised me to value, would so inform my work. In essence, writing plays that delve into and are set against international and political concerns is simply me, as a writer, being called home.

As preparation for writing the play, you were able to dialogue with Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars, and Jack Devine who served at the CIA and oversaw the sale of the Stinger missiles—featured prominently in the story line. How did you weave those conversations into the fabric of Blood and Gifts?

In a nutshell, the process works likes this for me: I read an enormous amount about the historical and political history that the story I’m going to tell is set against. Only after I’m stepped in the events do I start interviewing people who were personally involved. My aim is not to talk with folks about “talking points” or to be further educated but to get into the personal: What did you eat? What was the light like? The smells? Who really, really pissed you off? And on and on. Playwrighting is about detail and specificity; I take the specific details that folks are kind enough to share with me and I weave them into the characters I’ve created. The characters are mine, but these details help to ground them.

The first section of the drama establishes the characters and the backstory of the conflict in Afghanistan. There is a lot of material to digest. In tandem with this arc, you present the personal histories of the main players—which connect them as individuals and through parallel situations. How did you create a balance between the two elements?

I don’t break the story or characters up that way. I try to create dramatic situations and personae where people have to talk about politics—where it is as life-and-death important as, say, sex or violence is in many other stories. There is some “table setting” in the first act, so that there is an emotional wallop and a good yarn in act two, but I’ve tried to weave the personal and the political throughout.

When a large American flag descends, to serve as a backdrop for a hearing at

Photo: T. Charles Erickson

the United States Senate Building, the energy shifts. The murky cloak and dagger machinations of covert operations give way to spotlighting the issue of getting funding for the Afghan freedom fighters from “American taxpayers.” The previously established relationships, impacted by new forces, are operating in a new sphere. As the next piece in the puzzle, did you see this juncture as the place where the audience would readily identify?

Audiences tell you what your play is about. I’m always intrigued by how they react differently than I expected to some part of the story. In this production, when we arrive in DC at the top of Act Two there’s a palpable lowering of shoulders. There’s a collective sense of, “Ahhhhh, I know this world, I’m comfortable here.” But they do go back with me to Pakistan, and then Afghanistan, as the play hurdles on. The DC scenes have become an unforeseen “battery charge” for them, revving them up to go back to places and events that are deeply foreign to most of them.

The American agent, James Warnock, has a scene with his CIA boss where the focus is a moral exchange rather than one dealing with logistics. In this sequence, he asks, “Which action that I take will do less evil?” He is given the response, “In this work there is no perfect and no good.” By highlighting the personal as well as the national quandaries, you make the issues very relatable. What do you hope that theatergoers will take away from the play, and how does that reflect you initial goals in writing the play?

To say, There but by the grace of God go I. To ask themselves, “If I were in that position, screws tightening, the world seemingly hanging on my decision…what would I do, and what would my choice say about me?” I don’t have a point to make or theme to underline. I try to put the world on stage and let the audience decide what they think about who they meet and what transpires. Lots of questions raised but no answers given. Theater is good at the former, not so much at the latter.

This article originally appeared on cultureID

Gray, who acts in the drama, as well as having written and directed it, sets his story on a spare stage.  Act I uses six chairs, an American flag, a photo of Roosevelt, and an Uncle Sam “I Want You” poster as props. The popular 40s tune “Straighten Up and Fly Right” places the era.  A recruitment image of a black pilot underscores the theme.

We are introduced to six men who have traveled to Utah to take on the challenge of a qualifying test.  It is made clear that many white officers are hoping for their failure, as they repeatedly refer to “Negro soldiers” as being “lazy,” having “a small brain,” and being unable to do “tech work.”  Although the men reference the model of Bessie Coleman, a black woman who had been a pilot in France, they are constantly dealing with “expectations for their failure.”

Kept waiting for two hours before they are allowed to take the exam, they talk about the need to stay focused for “their whole race.”  The conversations between the men reveal their respective backgrounds, histories, and anecdotes about the indignities they have suffered under the strictures of Jim Crow.  They agree, disagree, and share their philosophies which include: “There are no small mistakes; Think beyond the slave mentality; You’ve got to play the game.”  They discuss leadership, discipline, and education as a key to freedom, while invariably acknowledging the reality that “they don’t want us here.”

After they have passed the test with ease, the second act transports them to barracks in Alabama.  On the trip there, they have been forced to give up their train seats to German POWs and move to the last car.  While undergoing training, the message is, “We can’t have any mistakes.”  They adapt the attitude that the antidote to racism is excellence.  Their motto is, “Train me.  Let me demonstrate that I can.”  On January 31, 1943, the men receive their wings and are sent to North Africa, where they are installed on a separate base.  One of the characters quips, “So they gonna keep us segregated in Africa too?”  As part of the 99^th Pursuit Squadron, they were used only for groundwork.

Finally, they get assigned to the European Theater, where they serve in Italy as escorts.  As part of the 322^nd fighter Group, they become a highly requested unit.  Their airplanes, easily recognized by the tails that were painted red, garnered them the nickname of the “Red Tail Angels.”

Speaking with Gray after the performance, he told me, “The facts are true, but the storyline is fictional.  As a playwright, I had the opportunity to create knowledge.”

For those unfamiliar with this chapter of America’s World War II story, Black Angels Over Tuskegee gives them the opportunity to acquaint themselves with this worthy account.

Photo Courtesy of Alexandra Marlin

With music and lyrics by Broadway fixtures John Kander and Fred Ebb, book by David Thompson, and direction and choreography by Susan Stroman, the play takes on a series of challenges in presenting the Depression Era story of the nine African-American teens who were falsely accused of raping two white women in the state of Alabama.

Photo: ©Paul Kolnik 2010

Not an easy task.  Their multi-faceted solution to mixing creativity with historical and political insights?  Ratchet up the ante by employing the culturally volatile format of a minstrel show to give the account. Players are seated in a semi-circle, bookended by two stock characters, Mr. Bones and Mr. Tambo.  The master of ceremonies, the Interlocutor, is at the center.  Award-winning theatrical veteran John Cullum inhabits the role.  His character fluctuates between oozing white Southern civility and acid menace as he interacts with his black performers. “Sing it!” shifts from kindly request to threatening order.   Mr. Bones and Mr. Tambo, in addition to delivering comic lines that can be squirm-inducing for contemporary audiences, also portray a variety of characters (“white men is their specialty”) ranging from Sherriff Bones to Samuel Leibowitz—the New York Jewish lawyer who would take over the defense case.

There is high voltage energy in the air from the moment the actors come running down the theater aisles and jump on stage to perform their first number.  But it doesn’t take long before the import of the events about to be recounted takes precedence.  “What story are we going to tell tonight?” the Interlocutor is asked.  When he replies, “The story of the Scottsboro Boys,” he is queried, “This time, can we tell the truth?”

Photo: ©Paul Kolnik 2010

The musical numbers advance the story line of how the nine boys riding the rails from Chattanooga to Memphis, in search of work, found themselves unjustly accused of a crime.  Within five days, they were indicted by a white grand jury.  Pleading not guilty, all except the youngest, Roy Wright, were convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair.  The boys chose the International Labor Defense (ILD), the legal arm of the Communist Party, to handle their defense.  The courtroom actions would drag on for years, while the men languished in prison.  The appeals included a hearing in front of the United States Supreme Court (Patterson v. Alabama).

Kander and Ebb draw from a full range of musical genres.  In the “Minstrel March,” motifs recall the Old South through banjos and the ever-present tambourine—which punctuates not only melodic riffs—but dramatic points as well.  Starting with the traditional minstrel show call to arms, “Gentleman Be Seated,” the Interlocutor instructs his troupe to “flavor us with your song.”  “Commencing in Chattanooga” begins the tale introducing us to Haywood Patterson (the dynamic Joshua Henry), who becomes the pivotal figure of the story.

There are pure lyrical melodies, such as “Go Back Home,” which relates the yearning of the boys to return to the normalcy of their previous lives—before the nightmare began.  In “Southern Days,” the same luscious nine-part harmonies are turned on their head as they sing a tune of days gone by.  The Interlocutor remembers the melody “rising up from the cotton fields.” He suggests to his minstrel men, “It wouldn’t hurt if you smiled a bit.”  The group continues, “How the sounds and sights come back to me.  Like my Daddy hanging from a tree.”  The Interlocutor responds indignantly, “Here now, wait a minute, I don’t remember that part of the song.”  “Shout,” a foot-stomper, captures the exhilaration and hope that maybe justice will be served.  One of the play’s recurrent themes, truth—in all its incarnations—is highlighted in the acerbic number “Make Friends with the Truth.” It combines Broadway razzmatazz with a wow punch line.

In “the grand finale,” the glamour of a national cause célèbre is contrasted with the fates that befell the forgotten men when they were finally paroled and released.  The individual traumas are punctuated by the shake of the tambourines.  Heywood states, “After twenty-two years, I died in jail.  I wrote it all down in a book.  I told the truth.”

Jubilantly announcing, “A happy ending, just like I promised,” the Interlocutor introduces “everyone’s favorite—a cakewalk,” which originated on southern plantations. When masters hosted social gatherings, slaves dressed in costumes replicating the garments worn by whites, performing a dance of mimicry.  The best dancers were rewarded with a prize, often a piece of cake.  During this temporary exchange of roles, the control always remained securely with the Master.

By the conclusion of The Scottsboro Boys, the Interlocutor’s domination has been destabilized.  His call, “Gentleman, be seated,” is ignored and overturned; his rein over the narrative has been lost.  The unidentified woman who has been hovering on the edges of the action—as witness, mother, and guardian angel—evolves into a definitive persona.  She becomes the coda to the piece.

Shaken, exhilarated, and stunned by the play, I was interested in the process behind combining musical theater with a painful piece of history.  I spoke with David Thompson to discuss how he and his colleagues viewed their ambitions for the play, and scattered negative response to their approach.  “The story is bigger than any one reaction,” he told me by telephone.  “The fact that we’re dealing with [this story], we have to honor it, but we still had to bring it to life.”  He referenced the viewpoint of Kander and Ebb who believed, “We have to entertain an audience if we are telling a tough story.  [We have] taken them to a dangerous place and crossed over a line. They’re thinking, ‘Whoa, this isn’t what I expected.’” He added about the team, “That is their genius.”

Thompson’s belief about audiences was, “You’re going to go away with something that’s going to change you.” He noted, “It takes awhile to sort it out.”  Pointing to one of the play’s recurrent themes, Thompson said, “So much of what we’re dealing with, now and in the future, is that we don’t understand the truth, but stick to our opinions.  It’s easier to believe a lie, than to understand the truth.  It can be any social issue.” He concluded, “That’s what has driven me on this piece.  How do we tell the truth?”

This article originally appeared on the website cultureID.

I attended the performance that featured “A Salute to Roy Aarons.” A co-founder of the Maynard Institute For Journalism Education that trains minority journalists, Aarons died in 2004.   In addition to founding the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, Aarons was recognized for his activism on behalf of diversity.

The original format of the material, as developed by L.A. Theatre Works in 1991, was a play for National Public Radio.  In 2007, Cowan revised the text by integrating previously unreleased documents and shifting Katherine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, to the role of narrator.  It was then reformatted as a stage presentation.

The core of the story centers on a pivotal decision that must be made by Graham in 1971.  In question is whether she will give approval to print the documents Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara ordered written to record the role of American involvement in Vietnam – the Pentagon Papers.  The action takes place after the New York Times (who received the materials first via reporter Neil Sheehan) has been ordered by a judge to discontinue publishing articles drawn from the classified information.

For those in the audience whose sensibilities have been formed by personal computers and the Internet, the milieu of a mere two decades ago may seem remote.  During that time frame, both the New York Times and the Washington Post were macho enclaves.  The 1968 Kerner Report, which made recommendations to the media about the employment of minorities and critically evaluated the media coverage of the urban riots, had yet to make an impact.  At that juncture, the resources of newspapers to have a showdown with the government were more substantial.  In today’s world, if no one stepped up to publish the documents, the information would find its way to the Internet.  The recent revelations on WikiLeaks showing Reuters journalists being killed in Iraqi are a prime example.

Cracks surfacing in the government’s façade – as they are less able to spin facts – are noted by one of the main characters, Washington Post writer Murray Marder. He brought the term “credibility gap” into the popular vernacular when he used the phrase, originated by David Wise in a New York Herald article, in May 1965. Wise had pointed to the dichotomy between the facts being presented by the Johnson administration about the progress of the war, and the on-the-ground news dispatches from Vietnam.

In production notes, Cowan discusses how the play evolved from an undergraduate lecture course he taught in media law in the mid-70s. Cowan currently holds the Annenberg Family Chair in Communication Leadership at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication.  I contacted him by e-mail for his impressions on how drama culled from actual events can impact the culture.  He replied:

“By dealing with issues of current and enduring importance, as experienced by real people, the docudrama can be a powerful means of raising questions and provoking constructive debate. Hopefully the panels after Top Secret illustrated the kinds of exciting conversations that dramas based on fact can produce. We have all been at fascinating after-play discussions and many outstanding discussions follow works of fiction such as Doubt and Proof. But docudramas can often bring those discussions to another level by exploring how real people dealt with real issues.”

For many in today’s audiences, there is limited knowledge about Civil Action number 1235-71, United States of America versus the Washington Post Company, et al.  When the case ended up at the United States Supreme Court, it was ruled that both newspapers were allowed to resume publication of the documents.  Graham states that Justice Hugo Black wrote that the Times and the Post “should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly.”

For those unfamiliar with the history, Top Secret opens a door to understanding concerns of utmost relevance today.

This story originally appeared on the website cultureID.

Originally floated as a movie script, with various stars attached to the project, it has been relaunched as a play by co-authors Michele Willens and Wendy Kout.  Willens, a journalist who interviewed Gahagan Douglas in 1973, and Kout, a screenwriter/producer, agreed that particularly in today’s election climate, the story needed to be told.  “A cautionary tale,” is how Kout described the script.  In 2006, the play became a finalist at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference.  The evening’s staged reading was a benefit for The Nation Magazine.  Both writers expressed to me their interest in having the play performed in conjunction with future fundraisers for activist causes.  The connection to The Nation came through Willens’s father, Harold Willens, who was an anti-nuclear advocate, Co-founder of a business executives group against the Vietnam War, and the chair of The Nation’s Circle of 100 Shareholders.

John Nichols, political writer for The Nation, began the evening by delivering a “contextualization.”  He said, “We are on a great cusp of history.  Are we going to go towards hope, or despair?”  Nichols articulated how the events portrayed in the play set precedent for actions that are currently taking place on the national stage.  He spoke about the “introduction of the politics of character assassination” and “why it mattered then, and why it matters now.”  Nichols touched on the fact that during Gahagan Douglas’s six years in the Congress, she stood with the causes of education, internationalism, feminism, and integration.  He related how she had read stories about the contributions of African-American soldiers into the Congressional Record, to show that black Americans deserved “full embrace.”  As a result, her peers denied her committee assignments.  Nichols concluded, “What happened to Helen Gahagan Douglas is not the past, it’s the present.  We need to understand where we came from, and where we might yet arrive.”

The four-actor play traces Gahagan Douglas’s political path from her awakening to the issues around her, to the 1950 campaign when she gave Nixon the moniker that would stick, “Tricky Dick.”

A fourth cast member represents tangential characters including Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman, and Hedda Hopper.  A background of projected visual images illustrated the dialogue and included Gahagan Douglas as a starlet, the iconic photograph Migrant Mother – taken by photojournalist Dorothea Lange, shots of the Capitol, and the 1973 issue of Ms. Magazine featuring Gahagan Douglas on the cover.  In addition, audio clips from the period added dimension to the production

The turning point in Gahagan Douglas’s life was the 1931 cross-country trip she took with her husband.  It opened her eyes to the “other America,” which existed outside the sphere of her insulated world.  In 1939, Eleanor Roosevelt extended an invitation to the couple to dine and spend the night at the White House.  It was the beginning of a long-term relationship.  In December of 1940, Gahagan Douglas got her feet wet when she was appointed as both the Vice-Chairperson of the California Democratic Committee and the head of Women’s Division. In 1944, when Congressman Thomas F. Ford gave up his 14^th District seat, he encouraged Gahagan Douglas to run for office.

Douglas had become involved in anti-Fascist activities that earned him rebukes from studio head Louis B. Mayer. He went on to work for the Office of Civilian Defense, before enlisting in United States Army.  Willens characterized “Helen and Melvyn” as “the first political Hollywood couple.” As the duo spent more time apart due to their respective schedules, rumors surfaced about extra-marital liaisons. Lyndon Johnson, who had become an advisor and mentor to Gahagan Douglas, was frequently mentioned as being more than a colleague.

Part of the play’s structure involves the use of humor and irony in the Gahagan Douglas – Nixon interaction.  Both Willens and Kout referenced their portrayal of Nixon “as a comic Iago.”  We are informed that Nixon, during his Congressional career, was pegged by Sam Rayburn as being “devious.”  There are also sidebars on The Hollywood Ten (1947) and the Alger Hiss affair (1948).

The stage is set for the 1950 Senate race, which pitted 50-year-old Helen Gahagan Douglas against 37-year-old Richard Nixon.  The New York Times described her as a “young looking former actress.”  Gahagan Douglas stuck to the issues and her record of fighting unemployment, opposing the poll tax, voting against the loyalty check, and supporting civil rights.  When urged to respond to Nixon’s misrepresentation of her beliefs and values she stated, “I will not get in the mud with him.”  Jack Elliott, of Standard Oil, offered her campaign funding if she would vote “yes” on the Tidelines legislation… that would benefit his company.  Gahagan Douglas supported the 1947 Supreme Court decision (United States v. California), which gave control of the lands containing valuable oil and natural gas deposits to the Federal Government.  Nixon supported restoring ownership to the state (which would yield millions of dollars in potential fees).  Gahagan Douglas voted no, and asked her supporters, “When does compromise become corruption?”  Elliott’s response was to organize “Democrats for Nixon.”  The terrain began to shift.

Nixon took his message to television, used a mail campaign to disseminate disinformation, and belittled Gahagan Douglas by calling her “The Pink Lady.”

He qualified the name with the jeer, “She’s pink right down to her underwear.”

The election depended on the ballots of undecided voters.  Despite Nixon’s whispering and smear strategies, Gahagan Douglas again decided to take an unpopular stand.  This time the issue was the Internal Security Act of 1950, also known as the anti-Communist Law.  At a time when Nixon had advocated for the fingerprinting and registration of all “subversives” residing in the United States, Gahagan Douglas voted “no” on the legislation.

From Chicago, where he was performing in “Two Blind Mice,” Melvyn Douglas delivered a radio spot introduced by Humphrey Bogart.  His goal was to set the record straight about the scurrilous campaign that Nixon had waged through libel and false witness.  The voters of California rejected his appeal, and elected Richard Nixon by almost a 2 to 1 margin.  The results, which were played out on a field of unambiguous distinction between the Democratic and Republican ideologies, would resonate in the future.

Helen Gahagan Douglas died of breast cancer in 1980, just short of their 50^th wedding anniversary.  Melvyn Douglas died the following year.  Her marriage had faltered, and her relationship to her children had suffered.  Yet, she understood and accepted the costs of her passion and commitment.

James Naughton starred as Melvyn Douglas, and directed the production.  Christine Lahti, who through her interpretation revealed the psychological nuances of Helen Gahagan Douglas, told me, “I think the play is important.  People don’t know who she is.  She was extraordinarily courageous, and she stuck to her beliefs.”  Lahti had also performed the role in Los Angeles.

Screenwriter Andrew Bergman commented on how the text dramatized the “birth of a certain kind of politics and the mass communication of untruth.”  He concluded his thought by asking, “What happens to the liberties you suppress, in the name of the liberties you are protecting?”

The brainchild of playwright Carol K. Mack, the concept for the project evolved after Mack sat in on a meeting of the Connecticut Chapter of Vital Voices Global Partnership.  The organization is a non-profit that focuses on empowering women around the globe by supporting the advancement of leadership.  Mack was viscerally impacted by hearing the struggles and ultimate triumphs of women who resolved, “not to go the route that had been chosen for them.”  She envisioned bringing individual stories to the public through the performance medium.

Mack began by assembling a team of playwrights (Paula Cizmar, Catherine Filloux, Gail Kriegel, Carol K. Mack, Ruth Margraff, Anna Deavere Smith, Susan Yankowitz) with award-winning resumes, to join her in conducting conversations with seven women from different parts of the world.  Monologues were shaped using verbatim transcripts of interviews.  Through workshop development, the structure evolved to an interweaving of the different accounts in a point-counterpoint methodology.  Commonality was the thread.

We are introduced to Marina Pisklakova-Parker from Russia, where 14,000 women a year are killed by relationship partners.  In a culture where a popular 16^th Century maxim, “He beats you, therefore he loves you” sets the tone, Pisklakova-Parker forged ahead to establish the nation’s first domestic violence hotline in 1993.  Despite menacing calls from irate husbands, she fielded 700 requests for help in the first year.  Pisklakova-Parker is still haunted by the woman who told her, “Before you get to me…I will be dead.”

Annabella De León also knows first-hand the price of being outspoken.  “Those who fight corruption, don’t have too many friends,” she observes.  Elected to Guatemala’s Congress in 1995, she has consistently championed the rights of women and indigenous people in her homeland, despite the risk.

In Cambodia, the office of Minister of Veterans and Women’s Affairs was always held by a man, until Mu Sochua was appointed to the post in 1998.  As a leading exponent for the fight against human trafficking in a nation that is a center of activity, she has publicly addressed the subject of how governmental corruption impacts anti-trafficking endeavors.  In 2005, she was a co-nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The family history of Hafsat Abiola, which is intertwined with the politics of Nigeria, reveals how she endured the deaths of both her parents in the fight for democracy. Her personal losses were an impetus, as she moved forward to found an NGO that offers skills-training and leadership programs to young women.

The words of Farida Azizi were captured by Ruth Margraff, who explained how their discussions enabled her to “highlight the poetry of Azizi’s words.” Shaping the oral history of Azizi’s fight against the Taliban hierarchy and the suppression of women in Afghanistan, was described by Margraff as a  “transformative experience.” Reflecting upon the relationship, Margraff reveals, “She changed my life.”

The moment in which Inez McCormack connected to the path of activism is underscored in her account.  As a young Protestant girl in Northern Ireland who never met a Catholic until her late teens, her insight into the discrimination and inequity that was devouring her country came in a shocking moment.  As a witness to the fallout of the Burntollet Bridge Ambush (where Catholic marchers were attacked by Unionists), her life course was altered.

Perhaps the most starkly emotive narrative of the set is Mukhtaran Mai’s story of survival and redemption.  She was gang-raped by four men as retribution for an “honor crime” supposedly committed by her twelve year old brother (allegedly he held hands with a girl from a higher-caste tribe).  A male tribunal from her village in Pakistan instituted the sentence.  After her physical ordeal, she was forced to walk home in ripped clothing that rendered her virtually naked.  Defying the tradition of committing suicide to restore honor to her family, she instead challenged the Pakistani legal system to punish her assailants.  She was rewarded with a damages payment, which she used to build a school for girls.  Susan Yankowitz, who worked with Mukhtaran Mai said, “It’s a very different process to put yourself in service to someone else’s voice.”  They met in person three times, in a situation where neither woman spoke the other’s language.  Yankowitz elucidated Mukhtaran Mai’s experience emphasizing, “She transcended the fate of women in her society to become a major force…and she did it in isolation and solitude, out of her own suffering.”

After the performance, there was a panel and “talk-back” session.  Melanne Verveer, Co-Founder and Chair of Vital Voices, introduced the segment with the comment, “How fitting that this is being premiered on Martin Luther King’s birthday.”  The audience got a brief primer on the mission of Vital Voices, which is to invest in women around the world that need support. (Last year they trained 700 women in thirty-five countries.) Since many of these women are both alone and marginalized, the connection helps to enhance their credibility.  Several high profile celebrities have become involved, including Sally Fields and Renee Zellweger.  Diane Von Furstenberg’s words, “When you invest in women, you change the world” became the basis for the Vital Voices tag line.

For the three of the profiled women who were present, it was a moving experience to see themselves depicted.  When asked how she felt, Pisklakova-Parker replied, “First, it was very emotional.  These are my sisters.”  McCormick commented on “what has been made out of our lives by the actresses and playwrights.”  She continued, “Women, as we step forward, should pull someone into our space.  We know the loneliness of speaking out.”  Azizi added, “We learn from each other.  The approaches are different, but we are fighting for the rights of women.”

When the microphone was opened to the public, it was inevitable that the question was posed, “Would having a United States woman president change things?”  McCormick was quick to point out that “Every woman in power is not necessarily a sister.”  She referenced her experiences with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.  However, she immediately made clear that Hillary Clinton had stood besides her before she was a person of importance, with an international stature.  McCormick asserted, “It’s not just about being a woman, it’s about being human.”

I was able to speak with McCormick after the reading, albeit briefly.  She gave me a clear and concise maxim.  “Saying no to what is wrong, creates hope of what is right.”  From the women who challenged the status quo of the power structure and the interpreters of their words, I felt reaffirmed in the belief that one person could indeed make a difference.