BERKELEY

PROLOGUE
from the Artistic Director
Imagine you’re reading a letter from me that
names a specific politician who is running for President.
Imagine me describing the tactics that person is using to
re-define the American political landscape: tactics such as
inciting terror and hate-mongering and bullying the opposition.
I can’t do that, of course. I work for a not-for-profit organization
that is forbidden, by law, to take political positions.
(Except, of course, in the work we produce and the culture
we create.) As artistic director, I can’t go public with any of
my personal political opinions because it might be interpreted
as the “views of the organization.” Which would be bad. Very bad indeed.
But there’s nothing to stop you from imagining my opinion. After all, you came
to see It Can’t Happen Here, our adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’ famous novel published
in 1935. Lewis, for his part, was a student of history and American political pathology.
He was paying attention to the populist appeal of Huey Long and zealous followers
of Father Coughlin. He studied capitalism, understood its commitment to inequality
and the fundamental disconnect between our economic system and democracy. He
saw the appeal of fascism in Italy and Germany and tried to imagine an American
counterpart. The novel ends up combining real history with melodrama, romance,
and satire to create a story that seems both fantastical and true, impossible to believe
and yet shockingly on point.
The parallels to our own time are quite real. Demagogues, then and now it
seems, have remarkably similar strategies. They wrap themselves in the guise of “authenticity,”
taking on personas as truth tellers whose speech is riddled with vitriolic
sloganeering and furious hectoring to turn their constituents into avenging furies.
But Lewis makes it clear that the personality of the demagogue is not the real issue;
poverty, fear, and ignorance are what make us vulnerable to authoritarianism, and his
larger vision of America is breathtakingly relevant on a host of levels.
And so here we are. Doing a play that feels like something more than a play.
About fictional events that Lewis described over 80 years ago that suddenly feel like
a warning to those of us living today. A warning that we take nothing for granted.
That we learn from our history as we try to embrace the present struggle. And as you
watch, I trust you will form your own opinion on these matters, since our lives and future
are dependent on the outcome of debates that are currently raging in our streets.
As for my own opinion, grab me the next time you see me if you want further
explication. But don’t ask me to predict the future. Hell, I thought George McGovern
was going to beat Richard Nixon in ’72.
Sincerely,
Tony Taccone
2016–17 · ISSUE 1 · THE BERKELEY REP MAGAZINE · 5