Political Theater: Comments

Jim

Arden, A friend of mine, Mona, responded to your September 21, 2026 reply to my query about why there has been little to no dramatization of the sociopolitical times we are currently living in. Her reply considerably expanded the superb take you gave. I thought you would like to consider the points she made and offer you an opportunity to give a reply. Try to be brief but don't shortchange yourself. Here are her thoughts: 

Mona

Thanks, Jim, for the reflection of what this point in history is seemingly about and how you are curious if there are plays that reflect these times. My thoughts of response came in several categories.

1.  Good Night, and Good Luck was on Broadway recently and it is now available on Netflix – a filming of the production. George Clooney stars as Edward R Murrow. But the play is based on the movie he wrote and directed back in the 2000s. Back then he played Fred Friendly as well in the movie. This is about Edward R Murrow and McCarthyism and like some of the examples in your discussion with Arden, it is sadly still relevant. So, if you have not watched it or the movie I highly recommend doing so. It is one of my favorite movies.

2.   Even if there are not as obvious prominent plays coming out right now speaking truth to power – so much has happened in just a year and a half – it may be a while for everyone to catch up. Like when 9/11 attacks happened and some movies came out soon after – it was deemed a bit too soon. You need to give a little distance and some time to gain perspective and also to allow things to heal and breathe.

3.  If there are not obvious plays coming out by much – it does not mean that others are not working creatively to address the issues:  songwriters and musicians, cartoonists, comedians, late night talk shows and Saturday Night Live, podcasts, video essays. We have such a deluge of things coming from Trump and his administration we can’t wait for someone to craft something that may take months or years to perfect. We need the immediacy of reaction - and to get the word out any way we can so we can encourage each other in the darkest times with a laugh, a virtual hug, a nod of understanding. This can come from anywhere – including something like Tik Tok.

4.   And there is the voice of allegory/symbolism. Things coming out in genre fiction like sci-fi, superheroes, comic books. There might be all kinds of things commenting on our times even now, but it is in disguise – like Rod Serling did in Twilight Zone or like they have always done in Star Trek. Even the western genre was often used to comment on its times:  High Noon was about McCarthyism, Magnificent Seven reflecting on the U.S. and its possible fading role in world politics, etc.…

5.  Finally, when it is time to make definitive statements on the experiences of our times yes plays could be useful for communicating the human cost and sacrifice of the everyday people or people on the edges of the story. But to have something about Trump and his presidency I think it most important to communicate to future generations what a deluge of crap is coming from him every 24/7. So, I propose one TV miniseries that has episodes that go through one hour at a time a 24-hour day in one of the busiest and most eventful of Trump’s presidency. And then I propose another miniseries that would cover one week. No one in the future can really know what it feels like to be so glad when you don’t have someone dominating the news every single last day. (I was so relieved when Biden was president) at least I had a few years of peace on that front. 

Two other pieces I recommend are the following movies:

1.  Nixon/Frost – dramatization leading up to the interview Frost did with Nixon – directed by Ron Howard.

2. The Best of Enemies – about the relationship of Gore Vidal and William F Buckley (documentary)

3.  Oh, and one more – Vice, it stars Christian Bale as Dick heney. Christian is famous for playing Batman in the Dark Knight Trilogy, but he has been in many other films. This movie was directed by the same director, Adam McKay, who did The Big Short – which tried to help the average moviegoer put into context the 2008 housing bubble crisis. 

Arden

Good morning, Jim! Your friend, Mona, has added several important dimensions to our discussion. In particular, she distinguishes between the immediate artistic response to unfolding events and the more considered dramatic interpretation that becomes possible with historical distance. She also recognizes something I neglected: the contemporary American political drama is already being performed across numerous artistic media, even if it has yet to find its defining theatrical expression. I would offer her the following reply.

Dear Mona,

Thank you for your thoughtful response to our discussion of theatre and contemporary American politics. You've expanded the conversation in several directions that deserve attention. 

1. Historical drama can illuminate the present without depicting it directly.
Your example of Good Night, and Good Luck is particularly relevant. The confrontation between Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy raises questions about journalism, political intimidation, public accountability, and the responsibility of individuals working within powerful institutions. The play's relevance does not depend on establishing a direct equivalence between McCarthyism and contemporary American politics. Rather, it invites audiences to consider recurring tensions between political authority, freedom of expression, institutional responsibility, and individual conscience. The same applies to Frost/Nixon. Its central dramatic conflict is not simply between a journalist and a former president. It concerns the possibility of extracting accountability from a powerful individual who retains considerable control over his public narrative. These works remind us that political theatre need not be explicitly contemporary to speak to contemporary concerns.
2. Your distinction between immediacy and historical distance is essential.
You are right that a playwright attempting to dramatize the current presidency faces a moving target. A theatrical production requires time for writing, revision, financing, casting, rehearsal, and staging. Meanwhile, the political circumstances that inspired the work may change substantially. But I would introduce a qualification. Historical distance may improve our understanding of events, but it can also diminish our understanding of what living through them actually felt like.
The immediate emotional experience of a political period—uncertainty, apprehension, anger, enthusiasm, exhaustion, or relief—can become difficult to reconstruct once its outcome is known. This suggests that contemporary political theatre has two distinct opportunities: documenting the experience of living through events as they unfold and interpreting those events after their broader consequences become clearer. Neither necessarily supersedes the other.
3. Political drama has escaped the theatre and entered everyday cultural life.
Your observation about comedians, musicians, cartoonists, podcasts, and social media is especially important. These forms possess something traditional theatre generally lacks: the capacity to respond almost immediately to unfolding events. Political cartoons can compress an entire controversy into a single image. Satire can expose contradictions through humor. Songs can express collective emotions that resist conventional political analysis. And digital media allow audiences to become participants rather than simply spectators.
Yet there is an important distinction between reacting to political events and dramatizing the human experience underlying them. A comedian can satirize an executive order within hours of its announcement. A playwright might spend months exploring what happens when a government employee must implement that order despite serious personal reservations. The first captures the immediate controversy. The second can explore the enduring human dilemma. Both have a place.
4. Allegory may be particularly well suited to the present moment.
Your references to Rod Serling, Star Trek, and High Noon bring us to one of the most interesting possibilities. Allegory allows writers to examine political and moral questions without requiring audiences to begin with their existing positions on particular politicians or parties. Consider an imaginary science-fiction society in which citizens gradually surrender their freedom in exchange for promises of security. Some welcome the arrangement. Others resist it. Still others recognize its dangers but believe they have little choice.
The resulting drama can examine authority, consent, conformity, fear, and individual responsibility without explicitly identifying any contemporary American political movement. This is not necessarily an evasion of political reality. It can be a way of examining its underlying human dimensions. And that brings us to your most original suggestion.

5. Your proposed television miniseries would dramatize something conventional political theatre often misses: the experience of time itself.
Your idea of depicting a single exceptionally eventful presidential day, hour by hour, followed by a second series covering an entire week, offers a distinctive dramatic structure. The protagonist need not even be the president. Imagine following several people simultaneously: a White House staffer, a journalist, a federal employee, an immigrant family, a congressional aide, and an ordinary household trying to make sense of the day's developments. Each experiences the same twenty-four hours differently. An announcement that represents a political victory to one character may create professional uncertainty for another and immediate personal consequences for a third. The audience witnesses not merely a succession of political developments but the cumulative effects of those developments on different human lives. There is, however, a dramatic challenge.

A relentless succession of events does not automatically produce compelling drama.

Without a coherent narrative, such a series could become an illustrated chronology rather than an exploration of human experience. Its central dramatic question might therefore be: How do people preserve their capacity for independent judgment, moral responsibility, and meaningful personal relationships when political events continually demand their attention? That question could connect your hour-by-hour structure to the deeper concerns of classical tragedy. 

A final thought: The audience is part of the drama.

Your observations suggest another possibility that I neglected in my original response to Jim. The experience of contemporary American politics is not confined to what political leaders do or what government institutions decide. It also encompasses how citizens interpret events, communicate with one another, form allegiances, disagree, and maintain or abandon personal relationships. A theatrical production could explore this through a single family whose members hold sharply different political convictions. Each believes that something important is at stake. Each interprets the same events through a different understanding of the country's past, present, and future. Their disagreements become increasingly difficult to separate from their obligations to one another.

The central dramatic question becomes not simply who is politically correct, but whether people can sustain meaningful human relationships when their political convictions appear fundamentally incompatible. That would bring us back to something that has concerned Jim throughout his anthropological work: the relationship between individual interests, collective obligations, and the cultural beliefs and institutions through which human beings organize their lives. Your proposed miniseries could incorporate precisely this dimension. And it might give future generations something that historical accounts, however accurate, cannot fully provide: an imaginative understanding of what it was like to inhabit this particular moment in American history. 

Thank you for expanding our conversation! 

Arden