We will not evolve into the future with closed minds.

And nothing closes the human mind – either individually or collectively – like the weapons of war . . . and the freedom to use them. Step one: Dehumanize those you’re about to kill (i.e., accuse them of being who you are, as exemplified by, among so many others, our old pal George W. Bush, who declared that America’s enemies “view the entire world as a battlefield” and proceed to turn the entire world into a battlefield).

But there’s a far deeper irony here as well – a positive irony, according to Martin Luther King. Consider the fourth of his six principles of nonviolence:

Wednesday, May 22, 6pm, this on-line event requires advance registration

We, the Ohio Community Rights Network, are inviting you to join us for, “A Truth and Reckoning with Nature: Isn’t it Time Ohio?,” on Wednesday, May 22, at 6pm, for a conversation with Tish O’Dell, OHCRN [Ohio Community Rights Network] board member and Consulting Director for CELDF [Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund] to imagine what being in right relationship with nature and each other might look like and how can we get there.

When an industry announces plans to come into a community, residents may discover that there is more to the story than the “more jobs and money” mantra. Instead, what they learn often raises concerns and many times actual fear and panic. Elected officials will attempt to quiet the alarm by stating that we have “strict regulations” to protect the community and nature. But is that really the case? Does the existing system of law recognize the important relationship between healthy ecosystems and healthy communities or does it place more importance upon the needs of an industry to profit from exploiting nature and the community and future generations.

In an informal conversation following Topsy Turvy’s premiere during the reception in the backyard of The Actors’ Gang’s Culver City citadel of stage, Artistic Director Tim Robbins flashed that still boyish grin of his and confessed Dionysus was his favorite deity. “That’s my god!” the Oscar winner gushed. Dionysus, of course, is (among other things) the Greek god of theater, and one of Athens’ amphitheaters (near the Acropolis), as well as a 5th century B.C. theatrical Festival, were named after this artsy son of Zeus and a female mortal. 

Dionysus (portrayed by Gang veteran Scott Harris in a snazzy suit) makes a special guest appearance in Topsy Turvy, a one-act, 105-ish-minute-long play performed without intermission, written and directed by Robbins. It is among the first fictional stage or screen productions to dare to dramatize one of the thorniest phenomena of our times: The Covid-19 pandemic, which is here simply referred to as “the plague.” (In 2021, playwright Willard Manus adapted Daniel Defoe’s 1722 nonfiction account A Journal of the Plague Year at the Brickhouse Theatre in North Hollywood.)