On May 18th, 1968, three Catholic priests (including Daniel Berrigan), a nurse, an artist and four others walked into a Catonsville, Maryland draft board office, grabbed hundreds of selective service records and burned them with homemade napalm in protest against U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The publicity and news coverage from the ensuing trial of the "Catonsville Nine" helped galvanize an American public that was becoming increasingly disillusioned with the Vietnam War. Berrigan's free-verse dramatization is based on the actual records of the trial in which he and the eight other defendants were convicted.
This August 18, 2007, Berrigan's play will be given a one-night only reading, by a star-studded cast led by Martin Sheen and Tim Robbins. The parallels between the events that the play details in relation to the Vietnam War and today political situation are striking.
The following is an exchange from the play:
PHILIP BERRIGAN
Simply, we have lost confidence in the institutions of this country, including the courts and our own churches. I think this has been a rational process on our part. We have come to our conclusion slowly and painfully. We have lost confidence, because we do not believe any longer that these institutions are reformable...
JUDGE
Well, if you are saying that you are advocating revolution...
PHILIP BERRIGAN
I am saying merely this: We see no evidence that the institutions of this country are providing the type of change that justice calls for. This has occurred because the law is no longer serving the needs of the people; which are a pretty good definition of morality.
As one of the founding members some 24 years ago, it is honor to have our theater associated with this searing account of how nine individuals had had enough of the Vietnam atrocities and took their White House protest to the street, resulting in a wave of public support. Parallels, similarities in our present times? Yes...everything but the street protest blocking Wilshire Blvd. Remember those?
The Actors' Gang, founded in 1982 by a group of renegade theater artists, has over 90 productions and more than 100 awards to its credit, and consistently wins acclaim for its daring interpretations of Shakespeare, Bruchner, Brecht, Moliere, Aeschylus, Ibsen and Chekhov, while also developing bold new plays that address the world today through a prism of satire, popular culture, and raucous stagecraft. The Actors' Gang actively reaches out to the community with its Free Summer-in-the-Park productions for families; Artist Residency in Local Schools program; by running lower, middle and high school after-school programs with children from the community; by performing special matinees for local schools; and with accessibility performances for the hearing- and sight-impaired.
Tickets and more information available here.