Gamm Theater Presents Play About Radical Politics

RI Future isn’t the only place in Rhode Island where one can get their fill of progressive politics. In fact, now through October 14 you can get it at the Gamm Theater in Pawtucket, which is running “After the Revolution,” renowned playwright Amy Herzog’s semi-autobiographical look at a family of radical leftists.

As a bonus, if you go on Sunday, URI labor professor Scott Molloy will be leading the post-play discussion.

Reviewed here in the New York Times, the Gamm describes it as being about:

Three generations of a loving and radically leftist family gather to celebrate the law school graduation of its youngest torchbearer, Emma. But news of a forthcoming book with shocking revelations about late Grandpa Joe – a famously blacklisted Marxist – casts a pall on the party and throws the family into an inter-generational tailspin. Shaken to the core, Emma must reconcile her fierce politics and family loyalty to decide if the end ever justifies the means.

In this piece by Herzog, the playwright, she describes how she ended up writing this play loosely based on her own upbringing.

In my household, Walt Disney was a villain, Fidel was misunderstood, and the Boy Scouts was a paramilitary organization. I knew the pledge of allegiance represented some mysterious evil before I knew what most of the words in it meant. Communism, far from being a bad word, carried the cozy association of my grandparents’ apartment in Greenwich Village where I spent countless weekend afternoons half-listening to the grown-ups’ good-natured but voluble political arguments over televised tennis and G&T’s.

Here’s the link for tickets.