TORTURE: ASIAN AND GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES | JUNE-AUG 2013
damaged by its turn to indefinite detention and torture. It is the mission of our theater company, Theater Three Collaborative, which I co-founded in 1995 along with George Bartenieff and the late Lee Nagrin, to present poetic plays about pressing social issues. Our next work is my new play Extreme Whether, about the struggle of climate scientists in the US to tell the truth about global warming and climate change in the face of fossil fuel company paid lobbyists who deny reality, sow doubt about the science and sabotage the scientists to the detriment of life itself. Again, this play has been deemed unproduceable by several well-funded theaters—one of which told me that my portrayal of the fossil fuel lobbyists who regularly deceive, lie and sabotage, is “too evil” to be represented on their stage. And, yet, my characters do nothing that has not actually been done by actual lobbyists. Again, those who control our culture simply do not want to know of the excesses of that culture. Extreme Whether bears comparison to Another Life in my mind, though the plays are totally different in form and content, because it is the story of the torture of the planet, itself. Again, Extreme Whether’s is a story demanding to be told. (Karen Malpede is a New York based playwright and director, Her most recent work is, Another life, which is based on the US torture program.)
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VOLUME 02 NUMBER 02 & 03