[Being the text of an e-mail correspondence in November 2001 between Jack Warner, the director of teatro la fragua, and Joseph Slowik, much beloved and admired professor at The Theatre School of DePaul University, Chicago.]

Ever since I saw you in Chicago, I've been going back and forth about your comment that Romero is agitprop-- which word of course always carries a sort of negative connotation.

I just happened to come across a remark in Clurman (I'm on p. 710) that seems to me speaks to that (he's talking about Rolf Hochhuth's Soldiers, which I have never read nor seen):

Like his coevals, Hochhuth is not primarily concerned with art. He wishes to disclose the reality of our time and to do something about it. This, if you like, makes him a propagandist. His effort is not inimical to art; he seeks new resources from which art may spring. This brings fresh forces into the play, enlivens the theatre, and thus makes a valuable contribution to its future direction.

What think you of that?

Love to Pat and the tribe.

Jack

25/11/2001

Dear Jack,

Many many years ago Dr.Gnesin lectured us about the relation of theatre to world problems. Problems which it is the theatre's obligation to explore.

He said a play could investigate and reveal a problem without offering a solution - -

Brecht did this consistently. He presents a problem in Goodwoman of Setzuan, in which Shen Tai, Brecht's saintly whore, loses everything by being good, but transforms her life into one of luxury when she turns bad. It's a dilemma: how can one be good and still not be eaten by the wolves of the world. Is the only way we can maintain ourselves by cold and unfeeling attitudes towards others? . . . . . . . The problem is beautifully presented (wish you could have seen my production of it ). The problem is presented but no solution is offered. Instead, in her prologue, Shen Tai fervently talks to the audience urging them to find a solution" "The world must change, it must!"

Gnesin also pointed out plays that examine a problem and urge people to take a specific solution. A good example of this is Clifford Odets Waiting For Lefty, when one of the cabbies at a union meeting urges the assembled low paid cab drivers to go on strike for better wages. Kazan, you might remember, did the play with the Group Theatre in New York and managed to move the whole audience who stood and joined the cabbies on stage yelling the line "STRIKE."

When I saw your Romero I could clearly see it as a play that shed light on a brutally serious concern in Honduras - educating its viewers while moving them tremendously.

No specific action was urged as I remember- but as a human being I was stirred up enough to want to find a healing solution.

In the sense that it examined a problem, I told you it reminded me of agitprop theatre.

I never had a negative view about agitprop. Problems must be faced - some in the arts do it badly, and some do it imaginatively and with great ardor as was witnessed in your production. There was nothing phony about it. Nothing haphazardly put together! Some of agitprop's reputation comes from the unthinking and sloppy way it is created - and the fact that it reflected leftist and fascist ideas. Obviously I should have spoken of Romero as a problem play - in its best sense.

I think the 11th street Theatre is a shitty place to do a play. That you moved me so in such hostile surroundings makes me want to see it again - in your theatre, or performed at some of your far reaching out in the open performing spaces.

Jack - I love your work and told you many times, you put me to shame. Your presentation at school was unadorned , energetic, committed, and made me want to hug everyone up there.

After I got your note I hurried to read page 710 in Clurman. God he is good. The best.

I saw Soldiers in London but couldn't shake jet lag - so I remember little about it.

I think it concerns the rumor that Churchill had something to do with the "accidental plane crash " that took the Polish General Sikorski's life. Sikorski, who was part of the banished Polish government set up in London, kept badgering Churchill to take actions against the Nazis that weren't in Churchill's plans. So Hochhuth suggest in his play that Churchill may have hastened the death of Sikorski to shut him up.

Jack- I go in for knee surgery on December 12th - and am taking a sick leave from school for the winter term. I hope I will be well enough to get back for the spring. This is the first break in my work in 49 years.

God bless you Jack--- Love to you and your work always....

17/11/2001
Dear Joe,