Milan Kohout, Mari Novotny-Jones, “Descent- Dissent” Charlestown Working Theater, Boston, 2004

Collaborative multimedia theater performance.
This performance was in reaction to the hysterical response of US citizens to the attack on the World Trade Center buildings in New York on September 11, 2001.
An excerpt from the program distributed to the audience:
“We are in a place of despair concerning the state of the world. The growing concerns about the possibility of never-ending wars in order to ‘export our values’ leaves us wondering if the current method of dealing with everything in a kind of simplistic binary system— Terrorists/Victims, Moslem/ Judeo-Christian, Evil/Good, War/Peace— is the only way that we can ever think about problems. This characterization lacks imagination and thwarts measures to negotiate beyond the expectations of aggression. We believe there is a need to examine America’s (the current company in power) position in the global community. Certainly, there would seem to be an affirmation to the complexity of the world view in this period of the new millennium. During these times, we feel as though we are pos- turing and bullying, staking our claims to the full rights we see extended to us by our victim status.
“That brings us to our piece. How do we awaken from this recurring nightmare? Can the world be sleepwalking into an endgame, a descent into a hellmouth reminiscent of a court masque? Protest is underreported. Where are the voices of dissent? It seems like nothing matters any more. It looks as if we are entering a time where selfishness is elevated to the status of sainthood. Our work embraces the themes of collapse, of falling, of capitulation. But we want to know whose collapse, falling and capitulation? We are working with elements of text and image and sound. We are finding ways to unify these elements around consistent materials and the use of theme and variation: the culmination ending in a final note that is more of a surrender than an affirmation of what could be.”