I recently learned of a one-act/one-man play, a monologue really, on the theme of tax resistance that was developed and performed in : The Man Who Stopped Paying. (It has also been recently put out as a novelization.)
On a first, quick read, it seems to be a graceful (if a bit didactic in parts), strange, dream-worldish meditation on the Sword of Damocles anxiety of the nuclear-armed cold war and on personal responsibility.
Unfortunately, it’s poisonous. I couldn’t help but notice that the text of the play is found on the website of The Committee for Open Debate on The Holocaust — an organization founded by Bradley R. Smith, the play’s author. Yep, he’s a Holocaust denier. He apparently believes, for instance, that:
- It cannot be demonstrated that the German State had a policy to exterminate the Jews of Europe, or anyone else, by putting them to death in gas chambers or by killing them through abuse or neglect.
- It cannot be demonstrated that 6 million Jews were “exterminated” during WWⅡ.
- It cannot be demonstrated that homicidal gas chambers existed in any camp in Europe which was under German control.
- It cannot be demonstrated that the awful scenes of the dead and emaciated inmates captured on newsreel footage at Dachau, Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen—were the victims of intentional killing and intentional starvation.
The play itself refers to the Holocaust in a couple of places, but not in any particularly controversial way. Either Smith still accepted the mainstream Holocaust history at the time he wrote the play, or he wisely decided to keep his crackpot opinions out of it.
