Most Dangerous Man in America (W. E. B. Du Bois)
Opening Night: May 28, 2015
Closing: June 27, 2015
Theater: New Federal Theatre
“Most Dangerous Man in America (W.E.B Du Bois)” is a dramatic reflection of one of the most traumatic events in the terrible period of McCarthyism. W.E.B DuBois, a co-founder of the NAACP, a scholar and political activist, known and recognized throughout the world, was indicted in 1951 by the US federal government at the age of 82 as “an agent of a foreign power.” In the play, the focus moves back and forth between the Harlem community and their opinions, the witnesses’ testimony and the courtroom battles.
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June 21, 2015
A history play, a biographical play, a documentary play and a courtroom satire, Amiri Baraka’s final work, “Most Dangerous Man in America (W. E. B. Du Bois),” by the New Federal Theater, is an unmusical grace note to Baraka’s vibrant, varied career. Baraka, who died last year, had apparently struggled with this drama about Du Bois, the great scholar and activist, for more than a decade, dwindling it down to less than a fifth of its original length. What remains is an admiring and affectionate portrait but a clumsy and inert play. The script mostly focuses on a period late in Du Bois’s life when the Department of Justice saw Red, investigating him and several colleagues in connection with their work for the Peace Information Center, an organization thought to have Communist sympathies. Bureaucratic oversights were used as an excuse to discredit and humiliate Du Bois, though he was eventually, and rightly, cleared of any wrongdoing.
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