Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Lemkin's House

This sounds really interesting.

A play by the Body Politic Theater:


Winner of the 2006 PeaceWriting Award from the OMNI Center for Peace,
LEMKIN'S HOUSE centers on Raphael Lemkin, the Polish lawyer who invented the
word genocide and dedicated his life to convincing the world to declare it
an international crime. LEMKIN’S HOUSE imagines what would happen if the
atrocities that occurred after Lemkin’s law was passed hounded him in the
afterlife. When the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides burst into his house,
Lemkin must recognize that even his law is not enough to change the world.
He weighs his ethical accomplishments against his guilt for deserting his
own doomed family, ultimately seeking not only justice but also forgiveness.
The play is a story about connection between all humans, from an extremely
humane hero and poses questions about whether unspeakable evil can be
legislated out of existence, and how we survive if it cannot.


New York Times Review (in PDF format)

Additional Articles and Photostills

Excerpts from reviews

I always found Lemkin to be such an inspiring figure. He had lost so much as a result of the Nazi Holocaust, yet he channeled his energy into getting genocide on the lawbooks. The 1948 Convention on the Prevention of Genocide is due to his work and tenancity.

No comments: