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BLACK PLAYWRIGHT LOOKS AT WHITE AMERICA     NESS

goal of trying tO get narcotics out of the neighborhood. Now Wally tells Sidney, "I still believe I am making my contribution to changing things-but I happen to know that in order to get anything done . . . you've got to know where the power is." He also tells Sidney to stop publishing political views in his newspaper, the same paper that helped bring Wally into office. But Sidney and Iris are too angry to accept this, and now Sidney's confrontation with this corrupt politician vindicates his sense of what reality is like, and brings back the confidence he needs to be strong:

SIDNEY: I am going to fight you, Wally. . . . You have forced me to take a position. Finally-the one thing I never wanted to do. Just being for you is not enough. Since that girl died . . . I have been forced to learn I have to be against you . . . and your machine. And what you have to worry about is the fact that some of us will be back out in those streets today. Only this time-thanks to you-we shall be more seasoned, more cynical, tougher, harder to fool-and therefore, less likely to quit.

WALLY: Sidney, you reek of innocence.

IRIS: The question is, what is it you reek of?

SIDNEY: I'll tell you what he reeks of collaboration-with Power and the tools of Power. Don't you understand, man? Too much has happened to me! I love my wife-I want her back. i loved my sister-in-law. I want to see her alive. I-I love you-I should like to see you redeemed. But in the context in which we presently stand here I doubt any of this is possible. That which warped and distorted all of us is-all around; it is in this very air! This world-this swirling, seething madness-which you ask us to accept, to help maintain-has done this . . . maimed my friends . . . emptied these rooms and my very bed. And now it has taken my sister. This world! Therefore, to live, to breathe-I shall have to fight it!

At the conclusion of the play, Sidney is consoling Iris in her tears, telling her, "Let us both weep. That is the first thing: to let ourselves feel again. Then, tomorrow, we shall make something strong of this sorrow."

The compelling thing about Sidney Brustein is that although political commitment is the overriding concern, by and large the play

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Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-14 12:30:00 Second sentence of last paragraph missing “t” in “first”. ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-14 16:43:39