Politics is easy, if you're not holding or running for office: You simply say what you believe, and act accordingly. The two hard parts are knowing what you believe and choosing the action that will best further your belief. Similar problems—inner doubts and tactical dilemmas—dog the making of political plays. The chief solution is to eschew propaganda: Believe what you believe, and let the characters speak as they will. (This is what makes the theater such a problem for right-wing Americans, who fundamentally don't believe in free speech.) But how you channel their verbal impulses into a form that audiences will watch with interest turns the challenge into a vast sea of temptations. No wonder political drama, of any quality, is such a scarce item; no wonder, too, that it often reduces to the merest agitprop or the most banal feel-good... More >>>