[EclecticSeizure] THE FEVER

[gillespie william k]

It is with a weird sense of pride that I announce:

This Wednesday, on Eclectic Seizure, from 8-10 PM on WEFT 90.1 FM, Carl
Estabrook will perform Wallace Shawn's THE FEVER.

"As I write these words . . . more and more people . . . are throwing away
their moral chains and learning to enjoy their true situation: Yes,
they are admitting loudly and bravely, we live in beautiful homes,
we're surrounded by beautiful gardens, our children are playing with
wonderful toys, and our kitchen shelves are filled with wonderful
food. And if there are people out there who don't seem to like us and who
would like to break into our homes and take what we have, well then,
part of our good fortune is that we can afford to pay guards to man our
gates and keep those people away. And if those who protect us need to
hit people in the face with the butts of their rifles, or if they need
perhaps even to turn around and shoot, they have our permission, and
we only hope they'll do what they do with diligence and skill."

The Fever, set (if it's set at all) in an unspecified Third World country
and narrated by an anonymous man or woman from some prosperous city, and
containing several lengthy arguments about the economic history of the
human race, nevertheless speaks very clearly about life in America in the
last two decades -- and I suspect that this is why it's not performed in
America, but is (according to the author) relatively popular in Europe.
The Germans have their own historical chamber of horrors, but they didn't
live through the 1980s hearing endless justifications of atrocities in
Central America -- from the President, the faces on the evening news, and
my own high-school teachers -- that sounded uncannily like Shawn's bitter
satire:

"Teach the poor . . . . that the dreamers, the idealists, the ones who say
that they love the poor, will all become vicious killers in the end, and  
the ones who claim they can create something better will always end up
by creating something worse. The poor must understand these essential
lessons, chapters from history. And if they don't understand them, they
must all be taken out and shot."

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