Free Thinking: American Power? Suzan-Lori Parks. Gary Younge. Abstract Expressionism.
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 21 September 2016
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Pulitzer prize winning American dramatist Suzan-Lori Parks talks to Philip Dodd about putting on stage the story of a slave fighting against those seeking to abolish slavery. Journalist Gary Younge discusses American violence, gun culture and the Black Lives Matter movement. Plus Abstract Expressionism at the Royal Academy - how does this art which was used by the CIA to promote American power look today ?
Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3) by Suzan-Lori Parks is at the Royal Court Theatre in London 15 Sep - 22 Oct
Abstract Expressionism is on show at the Royal Academy of Arts in London from September 24th to January 2nd.
Gary Younge's book is called Another Day In The Death of America
Frances Stonor Saunders is the author of Who Paid the Piper?: CIA and the Cultural Cold War
William Boyd is the author of many novels including one which presents a fictional biography Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928–1960
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps |
| 0:21.2 | that it's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream |
| 0:26.1 | van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC sounds. |
| 0:32.2 | Welcome to the arts and ideas download from the free thinking team at the BBC. |
| 0:37.3 | It is the exceptional nation, the president says. |
| 0:40.9 | It needs to be great again, says a contender. |
| 0:44.2 | Well, what exactly is the state of America now? |
| 0:47.6 | On tonight's programme, we shoulder aside the campaign rhetoric |
| 0:51.2 | to look at the arts of America and at its culture. |
| 0:55.2 | We have sent the novelist, William Boyden, the historian Francis Storna Sonders, |
| 0:59.6 | to see a major new exhibition of Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, de Kooning and others, |
| 1:04.6 | the abstract expressionists who rocketed to fame in the 50s when America truly ruled the world. |
| 1:10.7 | I also talked to the award-winning journalist Gary Young, |
| 1:13.5 | whose new book, Another Day in the Death of America, |
| 1:17.2 | looks at the young killed by guns within the 24-hour time span. |
| 1:21.5 | Ten dead, eight states. |
| 1:24.1 | But first, African-American Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who grew up in Germany was prompted into playwriting by James Baldwin and whose new play, father comes home from the wars, opens this week at London's Royal Court. |
| 1:38.2 | Its focus is hero and his master who promises the slave freedom if he will join and fight on the side of the Confederacy, |
| 1:47.1 | the slave-owning part of the Civil War. |
| 1:50.1 | What price freedom? |
| 1:51.9 | A play that does not a little of Homer's Odyssey haunting it, which has an informal chorus, much like Greek drama. |
| 1:59.5 | Suzanne Laurie Parks was born in 63, is best known for the Pulitzer Prize winning top |
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