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Life Among the Aryans
America's greatest living writer returns with a hilarious, scathing satire of the MAGA mindset.
The controversial new play from Ishmael Reed, Life Among the Aryans follows John Shaw and Michael Mulvaney, two modern MAGA white supremacists as they leech off their wives, take orders from grifting Leader Matthews, and plot a unique way around the encroaching societal progress they fear will leave them in the dust. Full of page-turning dialogue, unexpected twists and hilarious asides, this is the latest urgent must-read from the greatest living American writer.
Originally performed at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Life Among the Aryans has only grown in relevance, as the violence in Washington D.C. and state capitals around the country shines a light on the persistent unrest among a certain kind of American. A perfect counterpart to last year's The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda , in which Reed investigated the darkness at the heart of Obama-era liberal piety, Life Among the Aryans is a searing, hopeful and above all joyous investigation of what it meant to live through the last four years (and what will come next).
The controversial new play from Ishmael Reed, Life Among the Aryans follows John Shaw and Michael Mulvaney, two modern MAGA white supremacists as they leech off their wives, take orders from grifting Leader Matthews, and plot a unique way around the encroaching societal progress they fear will leave them in the dust. Full of page-turning dialogue, unexpected twists and hilarious asides, this is the latest urgent must-read from the greatest living American writer.
Originally performed at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Life Among the Aryans has only grown in relevance, as the violence in Washington D.C. and state capitals around the country shines a light on the persistent unrest among a certain kind of American. A perfect counterpart to last year's The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda , in which Reed investigated the darkness at the heart of Obama-era liberal piety, Life Among the Aryans is a searing, hopeful and above all joyous investigation of what it meant to live through the last four years (and what will come next).
- GenresPlays
84 pages, Paperback
Published December 20, 2022
57 people want to read
About the author
Ishmael Reed
142 books446 followersIshmael Scott Reed is an American poet, essayist, and novelist. A prominent African-American literary figure, Reed is known for his satirical works challenging American political culture, and highlighting political and cultural oppression.
Reed has been described as one of the most controversial writers. While his work has often sought to represent neglected African and African-American perspectives, his energy and advocacy have centered more broadly on neglected peoples and perspectives irrespective of their cultural origins.
Reed has been described as one of the most controversial writers. While his work has often sought to represent neglected African and African-American perspectives, his energy and advocacy have centered more broadly on neglected peoples and perspectives irrespective of their cultural origins.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 31, 2023
Ishmael Reed's play Life Among the Aryans begins with a haughty Yale-educated news-reporter touring the "heartland of America" to speak with the "disenfranchised" white working class. It's an obvious satire of the many sentimentalizing journalists in 2016 who tried to listen sympathetically to the resentments of rural white midwestern America and give some ennobling explanation of their various grievances (the fevered litany of affirmative action, universal health care, racial justice, women's equality, same-sex marriage, or the theory of evolution). But Reed's play isn't just a satire; it's a rejection of the very impulse to "listen to" or "understand" the perspectives of rural white America—which isn't to dismiss or ridicule them. In Reed's play, they are the marks, the victims, the unwitting targets of capitalist scrooges who use culture wars to distract the working class from the material conditions of their oppression. This is an uproarious, scathing, ridiculous and garish dramatization of Trump America.
As Reed's preface makes clear, the play is inspired by Brecht's political plays warning about the rise of the Nazi government. Like many Brechtian dramas, the play is a deliberate caricature, distilling class and ideology into one-dimensional mouthpieces: rural conservative America is represented by two white supremacist layabouts, an unemployed reformed meth-dealer and a porn-bootlegging football-washout; the two are being swindled by a Breitbart-style conman who says he needs their money urgently to fund an insurgency to overthrow the liberal ("Zion-occupied") government and return power to the former president but in fact he is just taking the money to finance a lavish trip to Monte Carlo; and in the meantime, a quack doctor is injecting white customers with a stolen chemical in order to turn them black so that they can claim the new $50,000 reparation payout from the government—a lucrative form of black-face and appropriation. What ensues is a comedy of errors, with farcical misrecognitions, buffoonish mishaps and corrupt chicanery.
The play refracts the ills of contemporary America—ethno-nationalism, neo-fascism, systemic racism, conservative revanchism—as cartoonish stereotypes. Like Brecht's Round Heads and Pointed Heads, in which a peasant uprising is suppressed by instigating an internal conflict between those with round heads and those with pointed heads, the play's moral is that the elite and powerful will always use race in order to divide the working class and maintain their class hierarchies (in the play, a ghost points to the New Orleans dock worker strikes in which the union leadership had to be split 50/50 between black and white members; it is an encouraging historical lesson in the power of interracial cooperation against economic exploitation). Like Mother Courage, the play is a tragedy about victims of circumstance who stupidly and stubbornly participate in their own self-destruction (the two white supremacists keep giving away all their money in the misguided hope that the revolution will reward them).
It's funny and angry, a lot to process.
As Reed's preface makes clear, the play is inspired by Brecht's political plays warning about the rise of the Nazi government. Like many Brechtian dramas, the play is a deliberate caricature, distilling class and ideology into one-dimensional mouthpieces: rural conservative America is represented by two white supremacist layabouts, an unemployed reformed meth-dealer and a porn-bootlegging football-washout; the two are being swindled by a Breitbart-style conman who says he needs their money urgently to fund an insurgency to overthrow the liberal ("Zion-occupied") government and return power to the former president but in fact he is just taking the money to finance a lavish trip to Monte Carlo; and in the meantime, a quack doctor is injecting white customers with a stolen chemical in order to turn them black so that they can claim the new $50,000 reparation payout from the government—a lucrative form of black-face and appropriation. What ensues is a comedy of errors, with farcical misrecognitions, buffoonish mishaps and corrupt chicanery.
The play refracts the ills of contemporary America—ethno-nationalism, neo-fascism, systemic racism, conservative revanchism—as cartoonish stereotypes. Like Brecht's Round Heads and Pointed Heads, in which a peasant uprising is suppressed by instigating an internal conflict between those with round heads and those with pointed heads, the play's moral is that the elite and powerful will always use race in order to divide the working class and maintain their class hierarchies (in the play, a ghost points to the New Orleans dock worker strikes in which the union leadership had to be split 50/50 between black and white members; it is an encouraging historical lesson in the power of interracial cooperation against economic exploitation). Like Mother Courage, the play is a tragedy about victims of circumstance who stupidly and stubbornly participate in their own self-destruction (the two white supremacists keep giving away all their money in the misguided hope that the revolution will reward them).
It's funny and angry, a lot to process.
January 9, 2024
Well, I decided to read some mature Ishmael Reed.
It’s fine?
This play, which is quite short yet contains 14 scenes across 3 acts, is extremely half baked. The plot isn’t important- white honkeys be dumb, the rich a the real enemies, blah blah blah- but it’s funny. Reed can write, but after 50 years, it seems all he has to say is regurgitate what more sophisticated champagne liberals have already said.
There is a good idea in here, but it clearly isn’t thought out all the way.
I tried!
It’s fine?
This play, which is quite short yet contains 14 scenes across 3 acts, is extremely half baked. The plot isn’t important- white honkeys be dumb, the rich a the real enemies, blah blah blah- but it’s funny. Reed can write, but after 50 years, it seems all he has to say is regurgitate what more sophisticated champagne liberals have already said.
There is a good idea in here, but it clearly isn’t thought out all the way.
I tried!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews