Venice Saved: A Seminar

My friend David Levine is (rightly!) featured in this week's Voice along with his new performance piece opening this week, Venice Saved: A Seminar. I was privileged to participate in a workshop of this project a while back and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Basically, it's a kind of staging of an obscure Simone Weil play, which in turn is basically her own rewrite of Otway's restoration tragedy Venice Preserved. The text is already loaded with political tension--Weil was a victim of the Nazis--in addition to telling a story of tyranny, state violence, and martyrdom. So David and his collaborator, playwright Gordon Dahlquist, have taken it a step further by inviting the audience not just to spectate the play, but attend a kind of classroom seminar on political theatre in general, using the play as Exhibit A.

So come watch, talk, shout, debate, whatever. However it strikes you, it certainly will be unique.

Playing at PS 122 through April 5.