Ayn Rand’s ‘Anthem’ Gets Staged in New York

[Barun Mitra]

Ayn Rand’s ‘Anthem’ Gets Staged Off-Broadway
Sept 28, 2013
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/09/28/ayn-rands-anthem-gets-staged-off-broadway/

The stage adaptation of Ayn Rand’s novel “Anthem” started in previews
this week Off-Broadway at the Jerome Robbins Theater. Playwright and
composer Jeff Britting hopes the play also serves as a springboard for
a “cultural conversation” about Rand’s ideas and philosophy.

Britting, who adapted the novel for the stage and composed an
incidental music score for the production, believes the story of two
young people born in a totalitarian world where the word “I” doesn’t
exist will resonate with audiences and encourage them to stay for
discussions after the 90-minute performance. The play opens Oct. 7.

“The message of ‘Anthem’ is the importance of your life and the
importance and the preciousness of your ego,” says Britting, a curator
at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The play was originally
produced by the Austin Shakespeare Theater Company in 2011 in Austin,
Texas, and its success there convinced Britting and the theater
company’s artistic director, Ann Ciccolella, that they could stage the
play in New York this year, coinciding with the 75th anniversary of
the novel’s publication.

“What I have found over time is that people who are intrigued by Ayn
Rand’s work are also interested in talking about it and expressing a
view about it, either positive or negative,” says the 55-year-old West
Hollywood resident.

Britting says the play, in addition to being a love story, poses the
question: what if we live in a world where the common good is
paramount and everything is done according to whether it satisfies the
group? “All those notions are embedded in American culture. It was
perfect that Ayn Rand pointed out all her life that the United States
was a country that had a politics of individualism – the right to
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – but it never had a deep
and clear understanding of the morality of individualism,” he says.

Britting says the theater company on Tuesday nights will also present
academics, writers and other “distinguished people from the thought
spectrum” to participate in the post-performance discussions, and for
Saturday matinees, Ayn Rand scholars. “So we expect to have people
left, right, center—having a chance to talk about the issues
dramatized in the show,” says Britting, who will be here in New York
during the play’s limited 10-week run.

“There’s more to Ayn Rand than what I consider superficial
identification with recent politics,” he says. He cites references to
Rand’s ideas and works in popular culture, in shows like “Mad Men” and
“The Simpsons,” in art and comedy routines, on crossword puzzles, and
in public-policy discussions. Rand’s influence “is all over the place
but there’s been virtually no focal point for that cultural process….
I think this play will draw a lot of attention to the richness” of her
presence in American cultural life, he says.

Getting the play staged in New York “has been the dream of my
lifetime,’ says Britting. He tried over 20 years ago to stage
“Anthem” here but wasn’t able to raise the money then.

He hopes the play will provoke the audience “because people today are
confused, they’re upset. And they see that the world is going to hell
and they are unclear why. And I’m saying that the reason why the world
is going the way it is is because of the ideas that the world
currently professes with regard to the purity and sanctity of
individual life.” If people are denied the right to pursue their
values, “the world is going to end up at some point in the future like
the world of ‘Anthem,’ and that’s a very real practical problem.”