THE LETTERS by John W. Lowell at Street Corner Arts

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2. THE LETTERS by John W. Lowell

THE LETTERS is a fictional account of the real-life efforts of the Soviet government to censor and suppress the private letters of the great composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, a collection of frank and explicit writings on his homosexuality. Though choosing the backdrop of 1930s Stalinist Russia, Mr. Lowells initial impetus for penning this taut psychological drama was more recent, and home-grown: the attempted impeachment of President Bill Clinton, the torture of U.S. POWs in 2004 and Edward Snowdens disclosures and revelations.In Stalinist Russia, a shy, reserved bureaucrat named Anna works in the disinformation department of an unnamed Soviet agency. She is called in to speak with The Director, a blustery, yet often charming, soldier of the governing party.Initial pleasantries turn into a cat-and-mouse game as Anna learns that a prominent artist has been arrested for writings unbecoming to the State. As the Director prods and probes, Anna proves to be more than a match for her appointed superior.Compared to the work of Pinter and Mamet, THE LETTERS reveals a paranoid, undrained swamp-world of governmental paranoia and top-down morality. Prophetic in foretelling the Russian anti-gay laws enacted in 2014 (Lowells play was first produced in 2009), Lowells piece casts light on the spectre of government intrusion
Ages: Adults 18 and over