Event: Performance of Howard Zinn's play Marx in Soho to benefit Autonomedia, a NYC radical small press
Date: Friday, March 31 and Saturday, April 1, 2006
Time: 8 pm
Location: Brecht Forum, 451 West Street (between Bank and Bethune, A/C/E/L to 14th Street and 8th Ave, 1/2/3 to 14th Street and 7th Ave.)
Ticket price: $10 - $25 (free book with $25 ticket)
Reservations and information: 718-963-2603,
info@autonomedia.org,
www.autonomedia.org
Description: Howard Zinn's Marx in Soho portrays the return of Marx roughly a century after his death. Embedded in some secular afterlife where intellectuals, artists, and radicals are sent, Marx is given permission by the administrative committee to return to Soho London to have his say. But through a bureaucratic mix-up, he winds up in SoHo in New York. From there the audience is given a rare glimpse of a Marx seldom talked about; Marx the scholar, the immigrant, the family man. Asking the question "Was Marx a Marxist?", Zinn casts a divergent light from the totalitarian movements his theories have long been ssociated with. Responding to the fall of the Soviet Union and the conventional perception that Marx's ideas are dead, Zinn resurrects this controversial historical figure, embraces democracy and passionately rejects the ideological rigidity of many of his followers with the phrase "I am not a Marxist." In poignant, funny, and intimate narrative, Zinn convinces us not only that Marx is not dead, but that his critique of capitalism remains relevant today.
This production of "Marx in Soho" will benefit Autonomedia, a small press in Brooklyn publishing books and electronic media in the areas of radical politics and history, critical theory, media, and the arts. Some of the voices published by Autonomedia include Antonio Negri, Subcomandante Marcos, the Critical Art Ensemble, Hakim Bey, Silvia Federici, and ADILKNO (the Amsterdam-based Association for the Advancement of Illegal Knowledge). It has been an all-volunteer collective since 1983. For more info, please visit www.autonomedia.org.
Cast: Jerry Levy as Karl Marx. Levy is a Professor of Sociology at Marlboro College in Vermont. He has performed Marx in Soho in London, Paris, Berlin, Bremen, Madrid, Belfast, Derry, Nimes, Montpelier, Santo Domingo, and throughout North America.
