Theatre Development Fund – TDF: Kurt Vonnegut, best known for his acidic novels Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five, only wrote a handful of works for the theatre, mostly playlets that are rarely done. So when two shows with his byline are running Off-Broadway simultaneously, it practically qualifies as a festival.
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Kurt Vonnegut is a name that I have heard many times in my life, but never have I read any of his work. This article makes me want to read all of them. From the description of these two plays, it seems very applicable to our country’s political climate, which is troubling considering why he originally wrote them. Suffering from the trauma he experienced during the second World War, Vonnegut wrote most of his works as a warning to the future to avoid polarization and taking any action that may be considered to be complicit with an evil person or idea. He wrote these because of the rise of Nazism that he had witnessed. If these plays are so applicable to today, we may want to take a took into history and consider how close we might be to radicalization in today’s politics. On an individual level, we need to vote, and we need to consider every opinion we put into the world and with who or what that view may align with so we do not further contribute to radicalization.
I think that with the political climate in the United States and the world in general, there are very obvious parallels between our world and the world of Kurt Vonnegut, both inside and outside of his novels. Many of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels revolve around the experience of World War II, the development of atomic weapons, and the rise of fascism and nationalism in general. Vonnegut’s novels delve into commentary around personal responsibility surrounding how to approach the political climate of the time, which is relatively similar to that of today, despite obvious differences. While I personally am more of a fan of some of Vonnegut’s peers as opposed more to him, I do respect his work and what he is attempting to accomplish. I can absolutely see why his works are being performed more onstage in this day and age as opposed to in the past fifty or so years.
During my year off from Carnegie Mellon, I drove across the country, testing out the geographic cure and seeing if it was at all valid. One of the places I ended up on my travels was Kurt Vonnegut's hometown of Indianapolis. I have only ever read a few of Vonnegut's works, A Man without a Country, and possibly his most famous book, Slaughterhouse-Five. However, my older sister is a huge fan of all his writings and so in her stead, I felt compelled to visit the Kurt Vonnegut museum, a small and charming two-room museum tucked away behind an unassuming storefront. The museum detailed not only Vonnegut's literary life but his early personal life and his war experiences that shaped so much of his art. From what I saw in that museum and what I've read, it seems entirely appropriate to add Vonnegut's voice to our current social/political cacophony. His work was always as sharp and biting as it was ambiguous, as he says himself in this article "[Mother Night is] the only story of mine whose moral I know." As there are no easy morals in Vonnegut's work, there are no easy answers to the political radicalization and upheaval we are facing today.
I read almost all of Kurt Vonnegut's books when I was younger, and completely understand why his theatrical work is so popular right now. Vonnegut writes about alternate universes and dystopias that make people question the current world and if what is happening is right or wrong or even happening at all. I think this frame of mind fits very well into today's climate and though I have not actually read or seen any of his theatrical work, I would love to go see both productions happening right now if I could. I think his work makes a poignant social commentary about the world we live and and how individuals navigate that world, and I think that is perfect in today's day and age. I hope that people who go to see both of these productions walk out reflecting on our world and their place in it, and how even the common person can effect the state of the world as a whole.
Vonnegut's work always puzzled me when I read them in high school. At the time, I was on a serious science fiction kick, and I had already finished Isaac Asimov's foundation series, I'd read Phillip K Dick's UBIK and A Scanner Darkly, when someon recommended me some of Kurt Vonnegut's work, saying that it was also science fiction. But while I had had some introduction to that sort of science fiction with Phillip k Dick's work, nothing could prepare me for some of the incredibly surreal stuff contained within the work of Vonnegut. Reading slaughterhouse five was literally like stepping into mind of a time-traveling PTSD suffering war veteran. I didn't actually know he had written anything for the stage, and I'm excited to hear that all of these plays are being produced right now. I sm s fan of vonnegut's written work, and now I am prepared to become a fan of his work for the stage.
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