Syracuse
Peace Council
2013 East Genesee St., Syracuse, NY 13210
spc(a)peacecouncil.net, (315)
472-5478
|
Syracuse
Peace Council's
73rd Birthday Dinner |
SPC's
73rd Birthday Celebration
"Marx in Soho" by Howard Zinn
Performed by Jerry Levy
Saturday, October
3, 2009
6:30 pm Dinner, 7:30 pm Program
St. Lucy's Church Auditorium, 432 Gifford St., Syracuse map
The premise of this witty and insightful “play on history” is that Karl Marx has agitated with the authorities of the afterlife for a chance to clear his name. Through a bureaucratic error, though, Marx is sent to Soho in New York, rather than his old stomping ground in London, to make his case.
Zinn introduces us to Marx’s wife, Jenny, his children, the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, and a host of other characters.
Marx in Soho is a brilliant introduction to Marx’s life, his analysis of society, and his passion for radical change. Zinn also shows how relevant Marx’s ideas are for today's world.
Winner of the 2000 Independent Publisher Award for best visionary fiction
Cost is $15-73 (sliding scale) per person (no one turned away for lack of ability to pay)
Dinner Seating for 175 people. Please make a reservation too help us plan food well. Walk-ins welcome too, first-come, first-served.
Download the flier
Download Full Color Poster
Send reservations (with check) to address below, or register online or call Joe at 315-877-3432.
Childcare is available by reservation (Monday, September 28 deadline)
Place an ad or greeting in the written
program.
This year's event will be signed for the hearing impaired.
This performance is made possible with funding from the Cultural Resources Council of Syracuse and Onondaga County and the NYS Council on the Arts.
Howard Zinn's play "Marx in Soho"
Performed by Jerry Levy in San Francisco was a Smash Hit!
By Bonnie Weinstein
With nothing more than a frock coat and a few small props, Jerry Levy's energetic performance of Howard Zinn's masterful play, Marx in Soho, brought a giant of a man up close and intimate with his audience. That Marx was addressing the audience was never in question. Not only does Levy look like the many photographs of Marx, but throughout his performance the honesty and integrity of a man that cared so much about the toilers of the world comes through. Levy's portrayal of Zinn's Marx brought the audience back to his past. All the while keeping note of the similarities between then and now. As Marx sees it, after 120 years of just being able to watch, the deepening of the class conflict in today's world reaffirms the correctness of his analysis of the capitalist system. His predictions of what would come without a world socialist revolution areproven correct.
Levy's Marx is old and plagued with boils but his mind is as sharp as a tack. He describes how he and his family struggled against extreme poverty, experiencing the ravages of capitalism first hand. Three of his five children fail to survive the harsh conditions of their life in Soho. He is a loving father and husband. He is a good and true friend of all who struggle, even when he disagrees with them on some basic point. He is intolerant of those that make his life's work a fetish and condemns those who have, "put their own comrades against a wall and shot them" under the guise of communism. But he never strays from his basic premise that capitalism is the root cause of human suffering, then and now, and has to go.