Imagine all Karl Marx would have to say after one hundred years of just being
able to watch...

Marx in Soho: A Play on History
By Howard Zinn, performed by Jerry Levy
Performances AT 7:30 pm
Friday, July 18, Independent Media Center, Urbana
Saturday, July 19, Channing-Murray Foundation, Urbana
Suggested contribution $5

For nearly three years Jerry Levy (who plays Marx) has been touring the United
States, Canada and Europe, and now he is coming to Urbana!

Howard Zinn's play, "Marx in Soho" portrays the return of Marx. Embedded in
some secular afterlife where intellectuals, artists, and radicals are sent, Marx is
given permission by the administrative committee to return to Soho London to
have his say. But through a bureaucratic mix–up, he winds up in SOHO in New
York. From there the audience is given a rare glimpse of a Marx seldom talked
about: Marx the man. The play offers an entertaining and thorough introduction
to a person who knows little about Marx's life, while also offering valuable
insight to students of his ideas.

Author of " A People's History of the United States," Howard Zinn humanizes the
man behind the ideas in "Marx In Soho," casting a divergent light from the
totalitarian movements his theories have often been associated with.
Responding to the fall of the Soviet Union and the conventional perception that
Marx's ideas are dead, Zinn resurrects this controversial historical figure,
embraces democracy and passionately rejects the ideological rigidity of many of
his followers with the phrase "I am not a Marxist." Instead we come to know
Marx as a complex character struggling to survive with his family as an
impoverished immigrant in London. Marx returns to clear his name and tell us
about his life with his wife, daughters, friends and enemies. In poignant , funny,
and intimate narrative, Zinn convinces us not only that Marx is not dead but
rather his critique of capitalism is more than relevant today.

Howard Zinn's Marx alone occupies the stage. "Marx has different voices. The
actor has to show Marx's outrage at social injustice, express the pedantic Marx,
the vindictive Marx, Marx, the loving family man, Marx as humorist, and a Marx
that can laugh at his enemies"

-----------------

Jerry Levy, the actor in Howard Zinn's one-man play, "Marx in Soho,"
grew up in Chicago and attended Von Steuben High School. He was a student at
UIC (Navy Pier) for one year, then transferred to UIUC, graduating in the early
1960s in sociology. While in C-U he was active in student programs at the
Channing-Murray Foundation, where he will be performing on Saturday night,
July 19th.

Levy says this is the first time he has been back in C-U in many years. He said
he is looking forward to revisiting the locations he remembers from about
1959--1962.

He is now a professor of sociology at Marlboro College, Vermont. During the
summer he tours the US and Canada with the play. He will be arriving from
Ann Arbor on July 14th and leaving for Canada on the 20th.

Mr. Levy plans to be in C-U and available for an interview July 15--19. For an
earlier phone interview, contact him at his cell phone, 301-775-8840.

His web site is < www.levyarts.com >.