BRATTLEBORO — A dramatic reading of “Project Unspeakable,” a new play about the 1960s assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy, will be presented on Saturday, May 3, at New England Youth Theatre.
The play, inspired by James Douglass' groundbreaking and meticulously researched book, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters, was written by playwright Court Dorsey and associate playwrights Debbie Lynangale and Steve Wangh (author of The Laramie Project). Like the book, the script focuses not on how the four leaders died, but rather why.
The playwrights say they intend to challenge the silence that for decades has surrounded these four “unspeakable” assassinations - “unspeakable” being a term coined by Trappist monk Thomas Merton, who died Dec. 10, 1968.
In reading the play, local citizens say they hope to shed light on the “unspeakables” of today - what many assert are crimes covered up by elements of the U.S. government and their corporate allies that, in organizers' words, have led to or worsened crises that beset our country and the world.
The play includes the words and stories of courageous individuals who, despite what the playwrights characterize as government intimidation, refused to be silent about what they knew about these assassinations. And it calls on all of us to examine our own responses over the years to such crimes, then and now, and to consider the potential for responsible action.
Since its debut on Nov. 22, 2013, the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination, the script has been read in dozens of towns and cities around the country. Organizers say 16 volunteers from the local community will perform the Brattleboro reading.
They include Frederic Noyes as John F. Kennedy; John Ungerleider as Robert F. Kennedy; SIT Dean Daniel Yalowitz as John Foster Dulles; and Professor Amilcar Shabazz, chair of the UMass-Amherst Department of Afro-American Studies, as Malcolm X.