I was deeply disturbed by the play This Beautiful Future in 2017 when I first saw it in London.
It’s written by Rita Kalnejas about two teenagers in 1944 France. They’ve snuck away to have sex. One is a French girl, Elodie, who is angry with her mother and most authority figures, disturbed by the occupation of Nazis, and listens to illegal BBC radio waiting to hear if they will be rescued. At the same time, she is meeting the boy she has been flirting with, Otto, an actual Nazi.
In the recent New York production, as the teens are going through the motions of their relationship, an older contemporary couple sing karaoke serenades behind them and cast an adoring gaze on this “young love.”
These older adults spout aphorisms of how “if they had it to do again” they might live their life differently. They wouldn’t let other people’s opinions get in the way so much. We are given a litany of “advice.” Just let down your hair. Be yourself. Don’t worry so much about what other people think. Free yourself from that kind of internal monologue. Fall in love. Be free.
It’s written by Rita Kalnejas about two teenagers in 1944 France. They’ve snuck away to have sex. One is a French girl, Elodie, who is angry with her mother and most authority figures, disturbed by the occupation of Nazis, and listens to illegal BBC radio waiting to hear if they will be rescued. At the same time, she is meeting the boy she has been flirting with, Otto, an actual Nazi.
In the recent New York production, as the teens are going through the motions of their relationship, an older contemporary couple sing karaoke serenades behind them and cast an adoring gaze on this “young love.”
These older adults spout aphorisms of how “if they had it to do again” they might live their life differently. They wouldn’t let other people’s opinions get in the way so much. We are given a litany of “advice.” Just let down your hair. Be yourself. Don’t worry so much about what other people think. Free yourself from that kind of internal monologue. Fall in love. Be free.
It's that juxtaposition of "just do it" over this sex scene that is so poisonous.
When I saw the play in 2017, I wondered if I was misinterpreting the playwright’s intentions. It could not be an unrepentant play arguing, the first year of Trump in office, that its actually okay to fuck a Nazi. But the playwright has in fact clearly stated her intentions were to “send a love song to the audience.” She intended to take politics out of this “romance” between a French girl and German boy in the midst of 1944 (while they have sex in the empty house of her Jewish neighbors who have been taken by the Nazis). The playwright believes no one has anything to apologize for.
I left the theater with a British writer and vigorously discussed the play. At the time, the media were reporting on people who were in relationships with Trump supporters and the question about whether you could separate that from your relationship was being raised. It was not some World War II hypothetical. It was a thing we were all living through then.
It was deeply disturbing that the play posited that one should not worry about the politics of white supremacy and Nazis and be apolitical about love (or frankly as I saw the intentions of the play…lust).
But that is, of course, political. To try to divorce this relationship between teenagers in 1944 from Nazism when one of them is a literal Nazi is deeply disingenuous. The patronizing nature of the naïveté/stupidity/the “just kids”-ness of this play is such an insult to every teenager who joined the resistance and died at the hands of Nazis. And frankly it’s just condescending to all teenagers who might not always make the best choices but know they are pushing boundaries--as these teenagers are here.
Also, I really struggle with the idea that there is ever a relationship (love or lust) that is actually truly separate from politics—even among teenagers. The politics of gender, race, culture, societal expectations, heterosexual hegemony are often present.
So even if one could (and it’s a huge fucking IF that looms so large that you cannot see around it) put Nazism to the side for 30 seconds of magical thinking, this relationship is still suffuse with political choices. Whiteness certainly looms here. The playwright damn well knows that. That is why she set her play in 1944 with a literal NAZI.
The pretense that we even want for a moment to stop time/politics/reality and just bathe in the warmth of “love” (again, I argue lust) between a NAZI and a Nazi supporter/sympathizer/overlooker is such a huge leap and one that I'm not sure the audience gets to take willingly. The playwright forces us to participate in this farce and then tells us we should like it--or at least it's good for us to see "the other side."
The playwright and production heap on creative elements pushing the narrative of the fragility of life, tenderness, and vulnerability (a live baby chick is employed in both the London and New York productions to hammer this point). This play and its production elements are meant to make us feel for these young lovers who just want to bang in peace while bombs fall around them. Just let them live their lives. They have inherited a world that’s a mess. So let them have sex and maybe a night of escape. But it’s also clear they don’t respect each other’s beliefs and they don’t see each other as complete people. And just don't worry about white supremacy.
The ideology at issue is so deeply rooted in erasing the humanity of others that I cannot for one single second give it a “pass.” No dick is worth fascism. Are we actually debating that?
The playwright wants us to pretend (along with the characters) that it’s just them in a room with mood lights and a bed. The escapism is central to the playwright’s efforts to work. But what are you asking us to overlook? And at what cost to our humanity?
Don’t try to convince me this pretense of escape is somehow my liberation.
Neither character is written in such a way that they have been coerced to be here.
Elodie's actions are entirely within her character’s transgressive nature. She defiantly steals someone else’s chicken and fakes possession in church. I get that being a teenager is hard and life in 1944 France was probably hell. But there was still a line that she was absolutely aware of within her community and she chose to cross it. In fact, that was likely a good deal of the attraction. Her reasons are meaningless to the Jewish family being murdered while she is in their bed. Further, she is emblematic of so many white women who continue to reify white supremacy. Otto, the dim bulb, believes in Hitler and wants to be lifted up by him. He likes ethnic cleansing. He’s not super bothered by that.
If the playwright also chooses to not be troubled by this, I am plenty troubled for the both of us. She has suggested that the ideology here doesn’t matter. Except it absolutely does. She wants the audience to interrogate its demonization of these characters--that demonization is rooted in a very specific ideology. Are you suggesting I not question the issues of white supremacy that Nazism stands for?
And having the older characters come out to give Otto and Elodie a hug because they are going through some heavy shit (e.g., the consequences of their choices) I seriously have to ask, are you fucking with me?
And the thing is there’s a reason we can’t just let this be. Because we agreed as a society that the planned mass extermination of a group of people was one of the worst things ever to have happened.
Also, white supremacy is alive and well and embedded in much of what we do in America. We're at a moment where maybe, finally, some white people are ever so slightly starting to interrogate that. Somehow you think we need to look away from it? Like it's a distraction from the more important thing you want us to focus on here...love (lust)? I just cannot process this bizarro equivalency.
And I’m just not built to look at this “relationship” and say this is morally neutral.
Worse, when the play and production have the audience sing along to Adele as the lovers lie in bed together, you are demanding I participate.
You want me to interrogate my judgment for these characters. But I’ve sat with this play for 5 years and it’s been eating away at me all this time. Not because it’s a great text with meaty things to mull over. It’s been bothering me because it’s pretending its own politics are either neutral or good. But I’m completely comfortable with saying fucking Nazis--both the act of fucking them and the people themselves--are bad.
I don’t think there’s moral ambiguity here. Even a small slide towards softening our attitudes towards white supremacists is a problem. The characters know who they are and what they are doing.
Life is a series of choices. And the weathered adults regret some of their life choices. But having them come to some conclusion that we shouldn't let what other people think dictate our lives and our choices, isn’t the equivalent of just throwing away your moral compass.
The play makes it feel like it’s arguing that the audience is trapped in a cycle of internal judgment that we should be free from and part of the internal judgment is our judgment of these characters. And I argue the demonization of the characters is earned. Let them own their choices. And I will own my judgment.
If you choose a political doctrine that absolutely erases other people’s humanity, don’t expect a fucking hug. Definitely not from me.
When I saw the play in 2017, I wondered if I was misinterpreting the playwright’s intentions. It could not be an unrepentant play arguing, the first year of Trump in office, that its actually okay to fuck a Nazi. But the playwright has in fact clearly stated her intentions were to “send a love song to the audience.” She intended to take politics out of this “romance” between a French girl and German boy in the midst of 1944 (while they have sex in the empty house of her Jewish neighbors who have been taken by the Nazis). The playwright believes no one has anything to apologize for.
I left the theater with a British writer and vigorously discussed the play. At the time, the media were reporting on people who were in relationships with Trump supporters and the question about whether you could separate that from your relationship was being raised. It was not some World War II hypothetical. It was a thing we were all living through then.
It was deeply disturbing that the play posited that one should not worry about the politics of white supremacy and Nazis and be apolitical about love (or frankly as I saw the intentions of the play…lust).
But that is, of course, political. To try to divorce this relationship between teenagers in 1944 from Nazism when one of them is a literal Nazi is deeply disingenuous. The patronizing nature of the naïveté/stupidity/the “just kids”-ness of this play is such an insult to every teenager who joined the resistance and died at the hands of Nazis. And frankly it’s just condescending to all teenagers who might not always make the best choices but know they are pushing boundaries--as these teenagers are here.
Also, I really struggle with the idea that there is ever a relationship (love or lust) that is actually truly separate from politics—even among teenagers. The politics of gender, race, culture, societal expectations, heterosexual hegemony are often present.
So even if one could (and it’s a huge fucking IF that looms so large that you cannot see around it) put Nazism to the side for 30 seconds of magical thinking, this relationship is still suffuse with political choices. Whiteness certainly looms here. The playwright damn well knows that. That is why she set her play in 1944 with a literal NAZI.
The pretense that we even want for a moment to stop time/politics/reality and just bathe in the warmth of “love” (again, I argue lust) between a NAZI and a Nazi supporter/sympathizer/overlooker is such a huge leap and one that I'm not sure the audience gets to take willingly. The playwright forces us to participate in this farce and then tells us we should like it--or at least it's good for us to see "the other side."
The playwright and production heap on creative elements pushing the narrative of the fragility of life, tenderness, and vulnerability (a live baby chick is employed in both the London and New York productions to hammer this point). This play and its production elements are meant to make us feel for these young lovers who just want to bang in peace while bombs fall around them. Just let them live their lives. They have inherited a world that’s a mess. So let them have sex and maybe a night of escape. But it’s also clear they don’t respect each other’s beliefs and they don’t see each other as complete people. And just don't worry about white supremacy.
The ideology at issue is so deeply rooted in erasing the humanity of others that I cannot for one single second give it a “pass.” No dick is worth fascism. Are we actually debating that?
The playwright wants us to pretend (along with the characters) that it’s just them in a room with mood lights and a bed. The escapism is central to the playwright’s efforts to work. But what are you asking us to overlook? And at what cost to our humanity?
Don’t try to convince me this pretense of escape is somehow my liberation.
Neither character is written in such a way that they have been coerced to be here.
Elodie's actions are entirely within her character’s transgressive nature. She defiantly steals someone else’s chicken and fakes possession in church. I get that being a teenager is hard and life in 1944 France was probably hell. But there was still a line that she was absolutely aware of within her community and she chose to cross it. In fact, that was likely a good deal of the attraction. Her reasons are meaningless to the Jewish family being murdered while she is in their bed. Further, she is emblematic of so many white women who continue to reify white supremacy. Otto, the dim bulb, believes in Hitler and wants to be lifted up by him. He likes ethnic cleansing. He’s not super bothered by that.
If the playwright also chooses to not be troubled by this, I am plenty troubled for the both of us. She has suggested that the ideology here doesn’t matter. Except it absolutely does. She wants the audience to interrogate its demonization of these characters--that demonization is rooted in a very specific ideology. Are you suggesting I not question the issues of white supremacy that Nazism stands for?
And having the older characters come out to give Otto and Elodie a hug because they are going through some heavy shit (e.g., the consequences of their choices) I seriously have to ask, are you fucking with me?
And the thing is there’s a reason we can’t just let this be. Because we agreed as a society that the planned mass extermination of a group of people was one of the worst things ever to have happened.
Also, white supremacy is alive and well and embedded in much of what we do in America. We're at a moment where maybe, finally, some white people are ever so slightly starting to interrogate that. Somehow you think we need to look away from it? Like it's a distraction from the more important thing you want us to focus on here...love (lust)? I just cannot process this bizarro equivalency.
And I’m just not built to look at this “relationship” and say this is morally neutral.
Worse, when the play and production have the audience sing along to Adele as the lovers lie in bed together, you are demanding I participate.
You want me to interrogate my judgment for these characters. But I’ve sat with this play for 5 years and it’s been eating away at me all this time. Not because it’s a great text with meaty things to mull over. It’s been bothering me because it’s pretending its own politics are either neutral or good. But I’m completely comfortable with saying fucking Nazis--both the act of fucking them and the people themselves--are bad.
I don’t think there’s moral ambiguity here. Even a small slide towards softening our attitudes towards white supremacists is a problem. The characters know who they are and what they are doing.
Life is a series of choices. And the weathered adults regret some of their life choices. But having them come to some conclusion that we shouldn't let what other people think dictate our lives and our choices, isn’t the equivalent of just throwing away your moral compass.
The play makes it feel like it’s arguing that the audience is trapped in a cycle of internal judgment that we should be free from and part of the internal judgment is our judgment of these characters. And I argue the demonization of the characters is earned. Let them own their choices. And I will own my judgment.
If you choose a political doctrine that absolutely erases other people’s humanity, don’t expect a fucking hug. Definitely not from me.
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