Play a Day: Trust

Sarah Schulman

When my wife and I visited London in the late 90s, she found Silver Moon, a feminist book store in Charing Cross. She bought a sweatshirt that listed in alphabetical order many famous women writers, e.g., Wharton, Wollstonecraft, Woolf.

I was not familiar with the name Sarah Schulman, and in fact did not notice her name there, between Dorothy L. Sayers and Anne Sexton, until after my wife has completed her MFA at Goddard College, where Schulman was one of her favorite professors.

For Thursday I read Trust by Sarah Schulman, and available from New Play Exchange.

Like one of those caper films in which an ordinary, white seemingly blameless white guy gets sucked down into the dark seedy underworld, only to emerge by the final reel safe and sound, a bit wiser but confident in his place of privilege, Trust is a seriously dark comedy in which our protagonist (Steve, the whitest name) is hardly blameless, and his passage through the underworld unearned and undeserved. You know how we all know the drug war unfairly punishes people of color? This is a damning, hilarious and fast-paced illustration of that.

This morning, before dawn, it was in the mid-sixties. I sat out on the deck and read in the dark.

The Dark, Dark Hours

The Dark, Dark Hours
Starring Ronald Reagan and featuring James Dean.
Broadcast Sunday December 12, 1954
CBS General Electric Theater

Origins of the Phrase "War On Drugs"
President Dwight D. Eisenhower began what The New York Times then called "a new war on narcotic addiction at the local, national, and international level" with the establishment of an Interdepartmental Committee on Narcotics on November 27, 1954, which was responsible for coordinating executive branch antidrug efforts. - About.com

Murder of Elderly Widow
June 30, 1948 at Cleveland, Ohio, James Buchanan was arrested by police of that city for the murder of a 60-year-old East Cleveland widow. After questioning by Police detectives he admitted his participation in the crime and also accused an accomplice. Buchanan admitted having participated, during the previous 6 months in the brutal attack of 16 women for the purpose of robbing them of their money. He stated further he wanted the money to buy wine and reefers (marihuana cigarettes) which he would consume at the same time. Before venturing out to commit their atrocious crimes, Buchanan and his partner would fortify themselves with wine and marihuana. Buchanan was 24 years of age at the time of his arrest, married and the father of three children. --The Traffic in Opium and other Dangerous Drugs

Sources:
YouTube
About.com
ReeferMadness.com