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FEEDOMWAYS   FOURTH QUARTER 1971

is not about political issues in the usual sense.  It concerns a small group of rather ordinary people who face a variety of real problems in their lives: there are Sidney, who is faced with the breakup of his marriage; Iris, who feels she is not "making it" as she would like; Mavis, who, even if she wants, cannot break out of the dull and limited life that she is stoically bearing with Fred; Alton, who as a black man has suffered discrimination and has the scars of growing up black in America; and Gloria, who is a prostitute.  Sidney, in the midst of this group, has more "social conscience" than any of them but is really not up to the role of ethical and political standard-bearer that he pretends.  Until Iris leaves him, his awareness of social problems is limited to a sense of discomfort and disillusionment about the quality of urban life.  He does not feel social problems as actually touching him, and he is not as yet, and has no reason to be, angry about the conditions of his life.

Sidney begins the play as a liberal, but when the test comes, and his own security is threatened, he fails the test.  He cannot answer Iris's accusation that "there are things talked about...that make me wonder how I ever thought you knew anything about this world at all."  He loses Iris and, int the aftermath, fails to prevent Gloria's suicide.

But Sidney overcomes his failures and gains by it, growing stronger.  Gloria's death forces him to reconsider things.  Why did it happen to her and to him?  Could it have been prevented?  How?  A host of thoughts suggest themselves, but one above all to Sidney: "The slogans of capitulation can kill!"  there is no simple answer to why Gloria died, but there is a reason why people like Wally, sho have power to stop narcotics traffic, did not intervene: "He reeks of accommodation.  He reeks of collusion.  He reeks job collaboration with Power and the tools of Power."  These words, as the stage directions indicate, are intended for Iris; she, too, had been willing to collaborate with Power and the tools of Power.  And as Sidney thinks of what has happened in the course of the play, he realizes how the possibilities of the outcome of any particular struggle (his own struggle to keep Iris, for instance, or Gloria's struggle to lead a decent life) are shaped by the larger forces of Power and commercial profit, and how these forces circumscribe each character's world and limit the extent of his freedom.  Sidney has a choice of either joining his brother's business firm or not making money (with all that that implies for his marriage); Iris has a choice of either doing TV commercials or not "making it" in acting; Mavis can either stay with Fred or be

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Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-14 16:46:44