Robert Schenkkan

There is a popular theory that all of human history is cyclical; we are destined to repeat the same cycles over and over again. This idea is explored, somewhat, in Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan's new play Building the Wall. Part post-apocalyptic warning and part prison conversation, Building the Wall tells the story of one potential future of America based on the rhetoric of President Trump and the successful implementation of his anti-immigration policies. Following a devastating terror attack in Times Square, martial law is enacted, giving Trump essentially unlimited power to round up and detain immigrants as he sees fit. One man, Rick, works at one of these detention facilities and his actions echo the actions of Nazi Germany, leading to the eventual impeachment of the president and arrest of Rick. The play tells Rick's story through a conversation between Rick and historian Gloria. Note: this review is based solely on the script. I have not actually seen the play, and who knows if I ever will.

This play is a bit of a challenge to review. If you take it as a piece of speculative fiction, it's pretty good. Nothing groundbreaking or anything, but enjoyable. It has echoes of 1984 and other dystopian/authoritarian futures, but it's also focused heavily on the life and actions of one man, Rick. The problem is that the play is so intricately tied with what might happen in the next two years or so in the Donald Trump presidency that it's hard to separate reality from the play. Which is part of the point, I agree. But, the likelihood of the events in this play unfolding don't seem all that likely (hopefully; I really hope it's unlikely), so once the next two years have come and passed, the play will seem irrelevant.

That's the problem with writing a speculative fiction story about contemporaneous real people. When you make up characters (and only sort of loosely base them on real people, instead of having them actually be real people) for speculative fiction, you're able to keep the story somewhat timeless. It's not specifically tied to the actions of one government official. This story, if removed from the context of Donald Trump, would work a lot better. You can have a fictional president with the same rhetoric as the rhetoric Trump has been spouting, and the story will work every bit as well, and also won't be liable to expire in two years' time. But, obviously, the story is explicitly about the actions of a Donald Trump presidency, and there's something about that that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I am very much not a Donald Trump fan; I'm not gonna get into my politics here, but needless to say, I am a hardcore liberal, so there's no love lost between me and Trump. But something about having the awful actions that happen prior to the beginning of this play be set in a very real potential future just feels... wrong.

It's hard to put into words why I feel so uncomfortable with the fact that this revolves around the potential future of a real, current president. Maybe because parts of this really are plausible, but also maybe because the fact that it's now permanently linked to Trump lessens the impact of the story. The people who really need to see/read this play are the ones who are diehard supporters of Trump, and they will immediately write this off as more bashing from the "Hollywood elite" (ignoring that theatre and Hollywood are extremely different). I mean, you'd still run the risk of doing that even if this was a fictional president, but it'd be just a little bit harder for that to happen. And they'd likely be a bit more receptive to the message were it about a fictional president, as is often the case with speculative fiction.

It also feels somewhat exploitative. Or potentially so. Maybe it's because I'm reading the play four days after the Manchester bombing, but I just don't like that the story hinges so much on a terrorist attack in Times Square under the very real President Trump. It's like that degree of separation you usually experience with speculative fiction has been removed and we're just left with this odd prediction of the future. And it's bleak. There's no real hope present in the play. I mean, Trump has been impeached and the Nazi-style killing of immigrants (more on that in a sec) have stopped, but the ending is just kind of dark. And I get that it's sort of a call to arms, like "we can prevent this future from happening" kind of things, but still.

That's not to say that I didn't like this play. On the contrary, I liked it quite a bit. A big central idea is that history repeats itself with normal people failing to take a stand. Hitler and the Nazi leadership were terrible, disgusting people, but their plans wouldn't have worked without Germans who were willing to go along with it, or who didn't realize the impact of what their actions did. Normal people were taken in by Hitler's rhetoric and went along with what he said and ordered, which led to the death of 6 million Jews and other Europeans. The same happens in Building the Wall. Rich isn't a terribly good guy, but he's not a monster either. He's prejudiced, but not murderous. But, in the heat of things, confronted with impossible choices and pressure from the powers-that-be, he elects to mass murder immigrants so as to free up prison space to imprison more immigrants. He's given opportunity after opportunity to speak up, but he doesn't, and he becomes not only complicit in what happens but a driving force.

And that's really what the play is trying to get across: these things don't happen without the aid of citizens who don't do anything to prevent them. If we don't learn from the past, and actively resist corrupt and evil politicians, we are destined to repeat our mistakes. We cannot just blindly follow orders and expect to not be held accountable for our actions, which is what Rick does. He offers excuse after excuse as to why what he did isn't as terrible as people make it out to be, but you can't rationalize it. You can't rationalize Trump and the GOP's hateful rhetoric. If you rationalize it, you run the risk of normalizing it, and when it inevitably results in the deaths of people (in this case, immigrants), those who led to its normalization are every bit as complicit in those murders as those who actually committed them.

This idea is presented through a conversation between Gloria, a historian interviewing Rick for his side of the story, and Rick, a former prison official who began the practice of murdering untold numbers of "illegal immigrants" in order to ease the overpopulation in prisons after Trump and Congress passed various laws that led to the mass incarceration and deportation of illegal immigrants. Through their conversation, we see how Rick arrived at the decisions he made, and we see Gloria force him to contextualize what he'd done and reflect on it all. In the end, it doesn't seem like Rich has learned all that much, but there's been an impact. The bigger impact, of course, is on the audience. The point of the story is not for Rich to learn from his mistakes, it's for us to learn from his mistakes. We're supposed to see how his attitude of compliance of ambivalence toward the suffering of others directly led to his actions that led to the murdering of people. We're supposed to see how he mirrors regular German citizens from World War II, how he mirrors their actions of inaction and normalization of the reprehensible. The play is a call to action for us to not fall into the trap of complacency; for us to take a stand in defense of those who need defending.

The play mostly succeeds in delivering that idea. Like I said earlier, it would be more successful if it hadn't tied itself so directly to the Trump presidency. The way it's written, it comes across as a paranoid fever dream of what could happen, but it's a long shot. Had Schenkken gone with a purely fictional president - one merely based on Trump's ideas and actions -, he'd have avoided this problem of comparing the reality of the Trump administration with that of this highly fictionalized speculation of it.

Had Schenkken spent more time developing his characters and less time trying so hard to tie this with Trump, the characters would have felt more dynamic. Instead, we're left with the stereotypical characters you get in this kind of story: the criminal defending his actions and the somewhat condescending reporter claiming to offer the criminal the chance to tell his side, but shaming him every step of the way. I'm not saying Gloria's actions in the play are wrong or uncalled for, I'm just saying that they fit the trope. There's nothing all that original about the play. It's a pretty standard idea, just with the added sensationalism of being about the Trump presidency and its potential future.

On its own merits, removing the influence of anti-Trump media from the play, Building the Wall is fine. It's not revolutionary, but it's not bad, either. It's a serviceable play about a potential future with a compelling narrative and decently written characters. The pacing is well done and the narrative itself builds to a nice, dramatic, earned conclusion. But there's nothing really special about it, aside from the Trump connection. The play only gets attention because it's about the Trump presidency, but the play also suffers for being about it. It should have gone the route of creating its own president for this story, and only basing his actions on Trump rather than making him Trump. Schenkken should have spent more time developing and fleshing out his characters, making them more than just the archetypal characters in plays like this. The play had a lot of potential, but it failed to deliver much of it.

I give Building the Wall three out of five stars. Like I said, it's not bad, but it's not all that good, either. Presuming the actions of the play don't come to pass, it will largely be forgettable due to its insistence of rooting itself in a very specific time period to very specific people. If those people don't do the things the play suggests they'll do, the play becomes irrelevant. And, as nobody wants the actions of the play to actually come true, that's likely going to happen. Perhaps the play will succeed in encouraging people to stand up against the current rhetoric. But aside from the activism aspect of the play, as a play itself, it's not gonna make a big impact and will largely be forgotten.… (plus d'informations)

L'attacco alla base americana di Pearl Harbor apre un nuovo fronte delle ostilità in Giappone. Desmond Doss, cresciuto sulle montagne della Virginia e in una famiglia vessata da un padre alcolizzato, decide di arruolarsi e di servire il suo Paese. Ma Desmond non è come gli altri. Cristiano avventista e obiettore di coscienza, il ragazzo rifiuta di impugnare il fucile e uccidere un uomo. Fosse anche nemico. In un mondo dilaniato dalla guerra, Desmond ha deciso di rimettere assieme i pezzi. Arruolato come soccorritore medico e spedito sull'isola di Okinawa combatterà contro l'esercito nipponico, contro il pregiudizio dei compagni e contro i fantasmi di dentro che urlano più forte nel clangore della battaglia. (fonte: Mymovies)… (plus d'informations)

War hero Desmond Doss stayed true to his convictions in the service of Christ and God clearly honored his faith. The Apostle Paul tells us in his Epistle to the Romans: "One man esteems one day above another: another esteems every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it unto the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, does so for the Lord" (Romans 14:5-6). Then he commands us, "Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Desmond Doss, a Seventh-Day Adventist, observed the Sabbath Day in service to the Lord, according to his convictions and God honored him for it. By this we are not to understand that every Christian must observe the Sabbath Day along with the Jewish people and Sabbatarians, but we are to understand that no matter what we do, if we do it in loving service to Christ in the freedom of the Gospel, our Lord Jesus Christ will honor us for doing so. Seventh-Day Adventists hold the observance of the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath (Greek Σάββατο), to be mandatory for Christians since it is one of the Ten Commandments. Orthodox Christians, on the other hand, see the Decalogue as being more perfectly fulfilled in acts of love as expressions of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and repentance toward God. Sabbath observance is certainly not wrong, but it is also certainly not mandatory for those in Christ. If performed by the Christian, it ought to be done so in service to Christ the Lord without judging others who do not observe it.

Saint Paul provides a helpful approach to this matter of Sabbath observance. He neither forbids it nor requires it. The Seventh Ecumenical Council, however, went beyond the policy of the Apostle Paul in this matter, stating the following:

"Inasmuch as some persons who have been misled by their inferences from the religion of the Jews have seen fit to sneer at Christ our God, while pretending to be Christians, but secretly and clandestinely keeping the Sabbath and doing other Jewish acts, we decree that these persons shall not be admitted to communion, nor to prayer, nor to church, but shall be Jews openly in accordance with their religion; and that neither shall their children be baptized, nor shall they buy or acquire a slave. But if any one of them should be converted as a matter of sincere faith, and confess with all his heart, triumphantly repudiating their customs and affairs, with a view to censure and correction of others, we decree that he shall be accepted and his children shall be baptized, and that the latter shall be persuaded to hold themselves aloof from Jewish peculiarities. If, on the other hand, the case is not thus, they are not to be accepted under any other circumstances whatever" (THE RUDDER. Translated by D. Cummings. [Chicago, IL: Orthodox Christian Educational Society, 1957], p. 438).

Now we ought not to reject the letter of the Law, the Torah, and turn around and demand the letter of Ecclesiastical Canons and we ought not to pitch church canon against apostolic injunction. If we remain imprisoned in a code of rules and regulations, we have fallen short of the Gospel of Christ, which is freedom. Christ did not come to substitute the letter of church laws for the letter of the Mosaic Law. Rather, since Orthodox Christians are called to observe a Higher Law, the Law of Love, true spiritual fathers deal with each person and situation in a loving manner--a relational manner transcending legislative formulations. On account of the Law of Love, the Greek word for church administration, Οικονομία (Oikonomía), has come to mean a loving expression of leniency in contrast to the strict observance of laws. Οικονομία grants exceptions to the rule in relation to the needs of particular persons in particular life situations.

The Apostle Paul, who declares the Church to be composed of both Jew and Gentile, encourages the circumcised not to seek to be uncircumcised. He writes, "Is any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God. Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called" (1 Corinthians 7:18-20). When the Apostle Paul speaks here of "the commandments of God," he is talking about walking the path of the excellent Way of Love, which surpasses legislative codifications. The Apostle makes this clear when he says, "Owe no one any thing, except to love one another: for whoever loves another has fulfilled the Torah" (Romans 13:8). For the Apostle Paul, there is freedom in Christ to either observe or not observe the demands of the Torah. Such observance or lack of observance, however, is not to be used to judge one's brother. Rather such observance or non-observance becomes a personal matter between God and each of the faithful. However one determines to act in relation to a law, he or she ought to do so as an expression of love in service of Christ. The Apostle Paul himself observed the letter of the Torah when among Jews and did not adhere strictly to the specifics of the Torah when he found himself among Gentiles. How could he act so differently in different situations? Was he not a man of principle? Was he being two-faced? No, he was not. Rather, the Apostle Paul was serving a Higher Law--the Torah of Love. He writes, "To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win over the Jews; to those under the Torah, I became as under the Torah, that I might win over those under the Torah; to those without Torah, as without Torah, (not being void of God's Law, but within the Law of Christ,) that I might win over those without Torah" (1 Corinthians 9:20-21). The Law of Christ if fulfilled by bearing one another's burdens (Galatians 6:2).

The Spirit behind Saint Paul's Apostolic injunctions and the aforementioned Ecclesiastical Canon against the observance of "Jewish peculiarities" is a Spirit of Faith and Love. The concern of the councils is the unity of the Church in the Faith of Christ and the avoidance of pretence. The canon seeks to discourage pretenders or insincere conversions. Unfortunately, however, as with every written code, the limitation of words fails to capture the whole of reality. As the Apostle Paul makes clear, it is possible to be Torah observant while being obedient to the Higher Law of Love. The regulations of the Torah then become secondary to the Law of Christ, which is Love. It is difficult to judge the sincerity or true allegiance of a heart. Torah observances in service of Christ are possible, but such observances can be confusing to believers who, seeing a Christian carry out such Jewish observances, fail to recognize that a person is observing a particular Torah regulation in service to Christ while recognizing that others serve Christ in their non-observance of such regulations. As Orthodox Christians we must continually be reminded of our freedom in Christ under the Law of Love. The Apostle commands that Jews ought not to begin living as Gentiles when they become Christians, but rather ought to live as Jewish believers in Christ. Likewise, Gentiles converted to Christ ought not to seek to be circumcised. What would be the point of that? Certainly, such a Gentile believer would be tempted to think that his circumcision would gain favor with God. But Saint Paul tells us, "Neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation" (Galatians 6:15). There is no reason for a Gentile in Christ to start living as a Jew. Nor is there reason for a Jew in Christ to start living as a Gentile. Similarly, when the Apostle Paul says, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28), he certainly does not mean that such distinctions do not exist for they certainly do. Rather, he seems to be saying that no greater spiritual status is obtained by observing such Jewish distinctives as observing the Sabbath or keeping kosher, or by obtaining one's freedom from slavery, or by being born a male. Rather, we all stand on equal footing in Christ regardless of our ethnicity, social status, or gender identity.

Saint John of Damascus speaks to us concerning the freedom of Christians under the New Covenant of Christ--a freedom that transcends the symbolic letter of the Torah, in the following words: "If you reject icons on account of the Torah, you should also keep the Sabbath and be circumcised, for these are severely inculcated by it. You should observe the entire Torah, and not celebrate the Lord's Passover outside of Jerusalem. But you must know that if you observe the Torah, Christ will profit you nothing" ("On the Holy Images" 2). Now, when Saint John says Christ will not profit those who observe the Torah, we must be careful to understand the importance of intent in such observances. If a man is circumcised for reasons of hygiene or due to some medical necessity are we to conclude, erroneously, that he has obstructed the Grace of Christ? Of course not! Doing other things which conform to the letter of the Torah, likewise, do not preclude the Grace of God. After all, Saint Paul commends those Gentiles who, not having the Torah, yet do, by nature, the things contained in the Torah, having the Torah written in their hearts (Jeremiah 38(31):33; Romans 2:14-15). Obviously, Saint John Damascene is not telling us to avoid doing things in the Torah at all cost! Rather, it would seem that Saint John's intent is to tell us that the Orthodox Faith transcends the written code of the Torah. He is telling us that if we are seeking favor with God, we ought to seek the favor of God by ultimate obedience, not to the Mosaic Law, which points us toward Christ, but by obedience to the Law of Christ which is faith expressing itself in acts of love.

God clearly honored the faith of Desmond Doss in his faithful observance of the Sabbath, done in service to Christ according to his convictions. We ought not to judge his observance as wrong, but rather hold up the standard of the Gospel. The Gospel standard is not strict observance of the letter of the Torah, but rather obedience to the Law of Faith in Christ expressing itself in Love (Galatians 5:6). Amen.… (plus d'informations)