© 2024 WGLT
A public service of Illinois State University
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Sinclair Lewis Play From The Thirties Echoes Themes Of Current Election

A charismatic populist candidate for president promotes a platform to create prosperity and restore America to greatness. Sound like today's headlines?

It's the plot premise for Sinclair Lewis' 1935 novel, It Can't Happen Here.

Things did not turn out well for the America that elected Lewis' fictional candidate, Buzz Windrip.  He quickly outlaws dissent, dilutes Congress' power by dividing the nation into administrative districts led by businessmen, and establishes a Gestapo-like police force called The Minute Men.

When theater director Lori Adams learned that the rights to the play Lewis wrote based on the novel were becoming available, she said she knew had to bring the work to Normal. 

"I have to admit I've been stewing about, is there something I could do to create some sort of awareness to care about what's happening in the political process. So when this came on my email feed I said, this is it, this is what I do, I do theater," Adams said on GLT's "Sound Ideas."

In collaboration with the Berkeley Rep theater group in California, the Westhoff Theatre on the campus of Illinois State University will present a staged reading of "It Can't Happen Here" Monday, October 24th at 7:30 p.m.  Adams will direct.

Similar staged readings of the play will take place across the country on the same night. That makes  "such a powerful statement," said Adams, who teaches in the theater department at ISU.

"The novel came out in 1935 and at that time there were a lot of fascist groups across the country trying to promote all sorts of nativist and xenophobic ideas," said Sally Parry, associate dean of ISU's College of Arts and Sciences, who is assisting with the production.

"The premise is what would happen if somebody is runs for president who is spouting a lot of these xenophobic ideas and gets elected. Bad things happen," Parry added.

She teaches the novel in her literature classes whenever there is a presidential election cycle, she said,  as a way of encouraging her students to vote.

Characters in the novel  say, "We're a democracy, it can't happen here," Parry said. "Respectable people stand aside and say, of course everything will work out,  I don't have to vote. The process will play itself out like it always does. But this is a warning, unless you're involved, unless you're a committed citizen and you vote and think carefully about what you are voting for, bad things can happen to the country."

Adams said a 1936 version of the play written by Lewis and John C. Moffitt for the Federal Theatre Project during that year's presidential election was timed to open on the same day in 21 cities. 

The version local audience members will see is a newer adaptation by the Berkeley Rep, which is being provided to community theaters across the country.

Adams and Parry said Berkeley Rep was particularly interested in seeing the play performed on college and university campuses.

"They said this is so important and connected to the political process, we should make this available across the country to replicate some of the excitement and some of the concern about the political process, and to make sure people are engaged in it," Parry said.

Adams said she is working on arranging for an audience discussion about the current political process  to take place immediately after the staged reading.

As one of the characters in the novel says, the issue is not merely how to defeat a single candidate, "It's the sickness that made us throw him up that we've got to attend to."

The October 24 performance at the Westhoff Theatre in the Centennial East Building is free.