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Touring Marx in Soho in Britain and the US: Interview with Bob Weick, Celebrating Marx’s 200th Birthday, Part 2

6/6/2018

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Street theater with Bob Weick as Karl Marx in Howard Zinn's Marx in Soho. Photo by John Doyle.
In this second part of the interview with Philadelphia actor Bob Weick—who was commissioned by playwright Howard Zinn to take Marx in Soho on the road, even to improvise to bring contemporary issues onto the stage, seen through the eyes of Karl Marx who returned to this Earth for a visit—the actor activist, performing in the United Kingdom right now, takes us behind the curtain and talks about issues usually stifled by the corporate press.  
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Bob Weick with Karl Marx bust. Photo by John Doyle.
Marx, a Brilliant but Imperfect Man, Returns from his Grave

Henrik Eger: Marx in Soho addresses Trump and the total takeover of the United States by the corporate world and their Republican politicians in powerful ways, even though Zinn died in 2010.  


Bob Weick: Because of where we are as a society, Marx in Soho remains extraordinarily relevant. The flaws in our system are seen in the headlines every day. Although, obviously not in the original script, the improvisations represent a tip of the hat to recent events—all in line with Howard’s purpose.

So, yes, I ad lib occasionally.I often strive to find the most current events, particularly those related to whatever city or campus I am visiting, to add to the show—but most of the play is the original work by Zinn.

Eger: Marx in Soho certainly makes a complex subject visible, human, and even entertaining. However, given Zinn’s desire to bring to light things that often were left unsaid, I was wondering why the play does not talk about the tragic end of Marx’s beloved youngest daughter, Eleanor, who committed suicide?

Weick: Yes, although Eleanor is a major figure in the play, this tragic part of her life is left out. And I’ve often thought more mention should have been made of [Friedrich] Engels. To edit a play about the life and work of Karl Marx to roughly 75 minutes must have been a daunting challenge for Howard.

It is always difficult for a writer to decide what to leave in and what to leave out of any given narrative. However, the play does include all the major relationships. In doing so, it gives the audience an opportunity to search further.

Eger: Similarly, quite a few biographers of Marx’s life pointed out that he not only lived in abject poverty, but that his children went hungry. Is it possible that Zinn created a lovable Marx who gets more praise for his struggles and achievements at the expense of telling readers or theater audiences that the German philosopher in exile apparently was incapable of providing for his family?

Weick: Marx’s personal failings as a husband, father, and provider are well known. It’s important to remember that the impoverished circumstances of his life were shared by millions. Marx was not alone in the ongoing struggles that capitalism presents to working families.
​

In our culture, some critics, especially on the right, often attack the personal integrity of the poor, based on the belief that poverty is a personal or moral flaw in one’s character or work ethic. More often than not, poverty is the result of the perverted values of the capitalist system.
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Contemporary photo of slum dwellers in London's SoHo evicted during the Victorian era
The Transformative Power of a Play: Audience Reactions

Eger: In all of your productions, you integrate the audience by opening up important discussions through Q&A sessions. If social justice is at the forefront of both Zinn’s and your work, how do audience members react to this unconventional play?

Weick: The play is a challenge for those who have no idea, or, more commonly, only a distorted idea about the life and work of Marx. When he proclaims, “the objective of Communism is freedom,” audience members who have been indoctrinated to believe otherwise are often confused, even stunned.

Eger: Did any of your audience members ever change their minds, perhaps recognizing that extreme capitalism can lead to major problems?

Weick: I don’t think the play alone has that capacity. To shake off the meta-narrative of the “American Dream” takes a good deal of work and intellectual honesty. I know Marx in Soho helps edify those who are moving toward a socialist position. It invites inquiry and defines the terms of the debate to those just beginning to explore these ideas. And it unsettles those who were previously comfortable in their conservative ideology.

Eger: How close do you think we are in reaching Zinn’s goal of building a more humane future in the US?
​

Weick:Marx in Soho and Voices of a People’s History are inspiring dramas. I’ll add my conviction that we are witnessing the most revolutionary moment in American history in the last 80 years.
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Large numbers of evictions of tenants in today's United States.
Taking Marx back to Europe

Eger: You’ve worked with director John Doyle, founder of Iron Age Theatre (IAT), on Marx in Soho and other projects.

Weick:John Doyle—educator, passionate voice for social justice, tireless in his efforts and committed to serving his community—was the perfect director for Marx in Soho. IAT’s improv-based rehearsal technique was ideal for this one-man show. He brought in other actors to work with me. We would role-play scenes described in the play that in performance Marx simply recreates from memory. I still smile and actually see good friend and improv partner Ray Saraceni whenever Marx recalls [Mikhail] Bakunin.

Through our work together on Marx, John and I have become devoted friends and have collaborated on other projects. Zinn’s Voices of a People’s History is one, as well as the development of new work grounded in IAT’s Radical Acts division. We work hard to bring important ideas to the classroom in support of educators through “radical acts.”

Eger: You are planning several performances in the US and Britain this year, commemorating Karl Marx’s 200th birthday. Tell us more about it.  

Weick: I traveled to Europe last summer. Stops in Germany included visits to Trier, the hometown of Marx, and [Wuppertal-]Barmen, the birthplace of Engels, then on to Paris to visit the Wall of the Communards, and ended in London’s Soho. The purpose of this trip was two-fold— first, to deepen my understanding of the world of Marx and to enrich my experience on stage. Second, to make the contacts for our anniversary tour, following in Marx’s footsteps.
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Eger:Bon Voyage on your journey, opening doors through a powerful play, which carries the spirit of one of Marx’s main insights: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it” (“Eleven Theses on Feuerbach”).
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Bob Weick visiting Karl Marx's grave in London.
Latest U.S. Tour Dates:

July 13-23, Capital Fringe, Washington D.C.
July 30-August 4, Providence Fringe Festival, Rhode Island
September, dates TBD, Chicago Fringe Festival
September, dates TBD, Philadelphia Fringe Festival
September, dates TBD, San Francisco Fringe Festival
September 21, Lehigh Valley College
October 9, Dickinson College

Latest UK tour dates:
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May 20-28 Brighton Fringe Festival. UK
June 2, Chatham Library, Manchester, UK
June 6, Bury, the Met, Manchester, UK
June 9, 10, Kings Arms, Manchester UK
June 12, The Space, London, UK
June 17, Etcetera Theatre, London, UK
June 18, Bread & Roses Theatre, London, UK
June 20-22 Gatehouse Theatre, London, UK
This interview was originally published on Phindie on June 6, 2018. 
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“When I step on the stage as Marx, I directly challenge the system”: Interview with Bob Weick, Part 1

6/5/2018

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Picture
Bob Weick holding up one of Karl Marx's works.
Karl Marx—(born in 1818) German philosopher and revolutionary socialist—lived in authoritarian empires like Prussia, France, and Belgium—countries which monitored anything that was published. Their rulers pressured even their neighboring countries to expel any citizen who was openly criticizing their regime.

After his and Friedrich Engels’ publication of The Communist Manifesto in 1848, Marx was forced to leave his homeland and flee to Paris, then to Brussels. When he tried to return to Prussia, the government refused to re-naturalize him, so Marx settled in London’s Soho, where he spent the rest of his life, even though the British denied him citizenship.
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Bob Weick, Philadelphia actor, Barrymore nominee, and Iron Age Theatre ensemble member, has taken Howard Zinn’s drama, Marx in Soho, on the road all over the US. The one-man show continues to receive wildly divergent responses from his audiences at universities and theaters.

This year, Weick will bring to life Marx, his family, and fellow revolutionaries in Marx in Soho in both London’s Soho and New York’s Soho—and many other places—in honor of Marx’s bicentennial birthday. In this interview, Weick gives us insights into his life and that of Karl Marx, playwright Howard Zinn, and his much talked about play.
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Bob Weick as Karl Marx… no, wait, that’s just Karl Marx.
Discovering oneself in Philadelphia

Eger: You were born and raised in the Kensington section of Philadelphia into a working class, German-Irish Catholic family and came of age during the Vietnam War and the civil rights era. How did your surroundings and the societal upheavals during those days contribute to your growth as an activist actor?

Weick: With all those injustices, I developed a distrust of so-called experts and figures of authority. My Catholicism, colored by the anti-war Catholic left, also played a role. All this—in stark contrast to the racism, sexism, and pro-military stance of my father and peers—served to create an inner conflict and a sense of anger in my younger self, until I discovered the work of Howard Zinn, and found my voice and a way to act—not only in the theater, but everywhere.

Eger: Before you became an actor, you chose to become a farrier, working with horses. How did an inner-city Philadelphian take on that profession?

Weick: Well, fortunately for this inner city kid, I could play soccer with some skill. It earned me a scholarship to attend Lehigh University where I met my former wife. She had a horse. Watching the farrier shoe her horse one day, I became intrigued, served an apprenticeship, and two years later started my own business, owning my own “tools of production.” Not a slave to any man, I found satisfying, fulfilling, non-alienating work—something Marx would wish for all of us.

Eger: If you are still shoeing horses, do some of the colts resist you initially the way some dogmatic students in Texas appear to give you a hard time when performing Marx in Soho?
​

Weick: [He laughs.] Yes, I still shoe horses, now on a part time basis. Like a young colt, some audiences are initially resistant and hostile. Over the course of the play, just as over time working with a fractious and frightened young colt, they learn to relax, listen, and trust me. In the end, audiences feel a connection and understanding they didn’t walk in with. To their surprise, they feel like they’ve met Marx—and they like him. However, although the owners are grateful, I’ve yet to receive applause from a horse.
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A horse getting a new horseshoe
Discovering Howard Zinn, Karl Marx, and the theater

Eger: How did Zinn’s work shape your way of thinking and reaching out through theater?

Weick: His influence is hard to measure. It may be an understatement to say I view the world through “Zinnian” eyes. His message of hope, founded in a conviction of the basic goodness and common sense of people and their capacity to rebel and change society for the better, is one I share. Furthermore, his point of view aligns with a more realistic presentation of US history.

And, yes, he understood that drama, like allart forms, speaks to a different part of our humanity. It’s a powerful way to communicate and engage people.

Eger: Having worked with Zinn, how would you describe him?
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Weick: Howard was warm, generous, with a great sense of humor, almost belying his lionhearted and steely determination against the injustice we see all around us. He was great to be around. I’m honored to have been his friend and doubly honored to have been commissioned by him to perform his work.
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Bob Weick and Howard Zinn. Photo by John Doyle, artistic director of the Iron Age Theatre.
​Eger: Bob, what gives you the courage to transform yourself into Marx—with all his strengths and flaws?

Weick: Attempting to right the wrongs, personal and professional, is a powerful emotional experience. Imagine you had the opportunity to come back to life, fully aware of the damage to your legacy as the result of those who used your name and distorted your life’s work. To reminisce and look back on one’s life is bound to be full of both joy and pain. I do experience all of that onstage.

As a husband and father, I know the pain of watching my children struggle and hurt. The pain of letting my partner down. All these real life emotions—fear, regret, inadequacy—inform my performance. It’s as though I see and feel the presence of real people from my life on stage with me.

Eger: The pain of awareness apparently changed your life dramatically.

Weick: Events in recent history, and in large part fatherhood, compelled me to find a way to act. I could no longer justify my own complacency and dis-engagement. I needed to do something to get involved, to play my part as a concerned citizen.

My children were coming of age on the heels of the debacle known as the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Then 9/11 and the illegal pre-emptive war with Iraq. My daughters, as with children all across the globe, did not deserve to live in a world with such massive, fruitless violence.

Eger: You became a popular actor and Barrymore nominee who performed Marx in Soho all over the US, now even in Britain. Not too long ago, you gave standing-room only performances at the Interact Theatre at the Drake—for the 295th time. What’s it like for you to laugh and cry and represent the many different facets of Marx’s life and philosophy for a whole evening—nonstop—and still have me convinced that you have performed it for the first time?
​

Weick: I have been in a few other productions over the years where I was glad the show was done—I would feel ready to move on. However, that’s not the case with Marx in Soho. When I think about why the play never feels stale or rote, I attribute it to two factors: the audience is my scene partner, and I am passionate about this play. To find meaningful, stimulating work is a gift.
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Bob Weick as Karl Marx in London. Photo by John Doyle.
Latest U.S. Tour Dates:

July 13-23, Capital Fringe, Washington D.C. 
July 30-August 4, Providence Fringe Festival, Rhode Island
September, dates TBD, Chicago Fringe Festival
September, dates TBD, Philadelphia Fringe Festival
September, dates TBD, San Francisco Fringe Festival
​

Latest UK tour dates:

June 2, Chatham Library, Manchester, UK
June 6, Bury, the Met, Manchester, UK
June 9, 10, Kings Arms, Manchester UK
June 20-22 Gatehouse Theatre, London, UK

For more information, contact Bob Weick at MarxInSoho@gmail.com or Iron Age artistic director John Doyle at ironagephilly@gmail.com
This interview was originally published by Phindie on June 5, 2018. 
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