Approaching Simone;: A play

by Megan Terry

141 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[Mark Valentine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sense that this play would need an enormous amount of energy to produce (multiple platforms on the set, 30+ performers including singers, props that will be damaged, etc.) but I think it would be exuberant also. In Act II, the full majesty of Weil's courage and intellect magnify the production, but there is also that wisp of doubt that she was anorexic and a hunger artist. In one scene, the ensemble lifts her and disrobes her taking on and wearing her close and symbollically, adopting her pain. The best Simone lines I felt appeared when she rallied the French factory workers but soon became accused of being a Trotskyite--she was anti-totalitarian regardless of the dictator. I became moved with the lines in which she instructs the lessons learned from the Iliad and applies them to Christianity (she observed a form of Christinity in which no church was acceptable to her). Lastly, the scalding hot accusations of her femaleness from the Chorus (in Act I) I thought overwhelming: confrontational, brutal, majestic.