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Media Credit: Photo courtesy of Nicole L. Vadnais Howard Zinn

"Why are we living? Why are we struggling and organizing? What is this all for? Sometimes, in the midst of all the turmoil, I forget, and I have to remind myself, and then I think of the very first time I realized my life could be…ecstatic." These words, coming deep from the heart, are that of political activist, anarchist, and life-affirming revolutionary Emma Goldman. Spoken to a friend and comrade, these words are reproduced through long-time activist and author Howard Zinn's "Emma: A Play in Two Acts about Emma Goldman, American Anarchist" (1976) to show her political work and life.
Suffolk University's Theatre Department has proudly and spectacularly performed a slightly shorter reading style of "Emma" featuring students, faculty, and alumni alike as the kick-off to ZinnFest! yesterday, a city-wide theater celebration of the work of Howard Zinn. Zinn himself thanked director Marilyn Plotikins and the cast for doing such a "fantastic job." If any of the cast were nervous about performing such an established play in front of the distinguished author, they didn't show it. The way Associate Professor Wesley Savick portrayed fellow activist Alexander Berkman (Shasha) made you feel their struggle, and his pain upon release after being imprisoned by the state for the attempted assassination of Homestead Steel strikebreaker Henry Clay Frick.
Founder of the Yale Repertory Theatre, American Repertory Theatre, playwright and educator Robert Brustein was multi-casted, making the viewer stand by his words as activist Johann Most, but hate him as President William McKinley (as one would the actual McKinley) through his speech saying "Cuba is now free!...and under our protection. Puerto Rico is ours, and Hawaii fell like fresh fruit into our mouths." Other notable cast members include Theatre Department General Manager Jim Kaufman, and Associate Professor Thomas Connolly, making his first stage appearance in 14 years.
None were as convincing as Associate Professor Caitlin Langstaff portraying Goldman herself, taking you from her choice to leave her neglecting husband and move to New York to be an activist and speaker, up until her arrest on sedation charges while speaking at an anti-conscription protest at the start of World War I. Langstaff took the audience through Goldman's internal struggle between being an activist and living life for today as well as tomorrow. Langstaff spoke Goldman's words like they were her own as she exclaimed to reporter's questions, "Voting is a game to keep everyone busy while the rich take control all of the nation's wealth."

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