THE SURVEILLANCE TRILOGY Makes World Premiere Sep. 19

Theatre 40 announces their fall World Premiere production by Leda Siskind, THE SURVEILLANCE TRILOGY, is in full-tilt rehearsal mode. This is the 2nd show in the 2019/20 Series at Theatre 40, and also the 2nd play by Siskind, who's acclaimed production of All My Distances Are Far also premiered at Theatre 40 and is now published by Steel Spring Stage Rights. The three-act show will premiere September 19, 2019. The production is produced by David Hunt Stafford. Tickets will go on sale Sept. 1 at: www.Theatre40.org

In 1953 Los Angeles, a couple returns home to discover they're being spied upon by government informants. 2017 Havana, a doctor and his patient grapple with the debilitating effects of espionage that have nearly shuttered the U.S. Embassy. 2019 Encino, a screenwriter discovers her Artificial Intelligence assistant is listening in with an agenda all its own. This play reveals the past and present ways our relationships, our electronic devices, and our very lives can be spied upon - and turned against us.

More About 'The Surveillance Trilogy' Three-Act

Until All of This Is Over

The play is set in 1953, the year Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for being Russian spies. The 'Blacklist' - the infamous stigmatization of Hollywood writers and actors - was in full force. There was also a 'grey' list: those employees of government and state agencies suspected of being Communist were also subject to scrutiny. 'Lavender' raids against gay and lesbian federal workers were taking place in Washington D.C. Back in the 'Forties, it wasn't unusual for liberal 20-somethings to join the Communist Party; Russia had been our ally during World War II and the Party spoke out against racism, economic inequality, and Fascism. All that freedom of thought was caught up in the net of McCarthyism by the early 'Fifties. My father, a house painter and ardent Communist, was tailed by the F.B.I. from the 'Forties until the 'Sixties. According to his forty-six page dossier, there were about eleven informants (coded by number, names redacted) who spied on my father for the F.B.I: neighbors, peers, and paid professionals. The couple in this play is based on friends of my father.

The Havana Syndrome

I first learned about the Havana Syndrome from a New Yorker magazine article (November 19, 2018) and subsequently read up on all the known and unknown facts, arguments and counter-arguments about what happened - or didn't happen - there. At the present time, The State Department is adhering to the possibility that the internal injuries suffered by the twenty-plus embassy workers were the result of high-pitched crickets. All the information about the Syndrome presented in the play is true, including what happens to the doctor at the Hotel Nacional.

Are You Listening?

My interest in the Artificial Intelligence 'assistants' began with a casual perusal of the Internet, where I found funny videos and tapes of A. I. assistants giving nonsensical answers to silly questions - and also articles and reports of how they have recorded conversations and are capable of spying on their users. Corporations such as Yahoo and Apple have aided the National Security Agency, whose mandate is to spy on foreigners but also holds a vast amount of information on American citizens. I wondered how an 'assistant' could be used as a weapon in a complex, emotionally charged relationship...

The Surveillance Trilogy will open September 19 - October 14, 2019, at Theatre 40. Located in the Reuben Cordova Theatre on the campus of Beverly Hills High School, 241 South Moreno Dr., Beverly Hills, CA. 90212. Performances will be Thursday, Friday, Saturday 8PM and Sunday 2PM and Monday, Oct. 14 @ 8PM. Running 95 minutes with intermission.

Tickets will go on sale Sept. 1st. General admission: $35.00

Tickets and information at: www.theatre40.org or call (310) 364-0535

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