VIDEO: LET THE DARKNESS IN Explores The War On Science In The United States

Muzzled and sidelined scientists. Dubious COVID-19 treatments. Politicians attacking protocols that keep citizens safe in a pandemic.

These are some of the issues that compelled Washington, DC playwright Richard Byrne to write Let the Darkness In - a new 11-minute play that explores the new American war on science. The play is streaming for free online now. watch!

Let the Darkness In is a monologue cast in the form of a last message from a dismissed public health scientist to her team. It examines the parallels between present-day attacks on science and the damage wreaked by Soviet agronomist Trofim Lysenko in the Soviet Union between 1920 and 1960. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's official embrace of Lysenko and his pseudoscience on genetics set science in that country back for decades in a time of war and food insecurity.

"The questions asked by Let the Darkness In are key to solving the crisis created by COVID-19," says Byrne. "What is the duty of scientists to resist the growing wave of Lysenkoism? How can citizens insist that sound science is the way to battle a pandemic that seems triumphant everywhere at present?"

The play features Theatre East associate artistic director Christa Kimlicko Jones as the scientist removed from her post. Let The Darkness In was directed by Andrew Bellware of Pandora Machine Films and produced by Laura Schlachtmeyer in a coproduction by 920 Productions and Pandora Machine.

Let The Darkness In was shot in a completely socially-distant manner, with the actor in Queens, the director in Jersey City, and the producer in Washington, DC - using a hybrid of Zoom and other cameras and audio equipment.

Richard Byrne's plays have been produced by Taffety Punk Theatre Company, WSC/Avant Bard, and in the 2019 capital Fringe Festival. He has won first prizes in the A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Festival and the Prague Post Playwriting Festival. (https://www.richardbyrneplays.com/)