Or how a left-leaning US presidential campaign gave the world a Make-America-White-Again Donzilla aka Donald Trump.
Dennis Trainor Jr’s thought-provoking and humorous play, Manifest Destiny’s Child, is a true account of his experiences as a teacher, who jettisoned a cushy job to join the frontline of the Occupy Movement as communications director for Jill Stein’s well-meaning but flawed 2016 US Presidential campaign.
“What if Trump were killed? I’m just spitballing here. Not by anybody in this room but by some cultural slash political force? Some secret operating force pursuing a peaceful global agenda —what if they —without our permission or consent —what if they killed Trump? Would future generations be better off? Another way of thinking about it is this: would America and the world be better off if King, Malcolm and the two Kennedy’s were not assassinated in the 1960s? Forget conspiracy theories. Just think cause and effect. Of course, we would be better off. Instead- those four were assassinated and a whole generation was scared straight. The hippies put their tails between their legs, and traded in their utopian hopes for a lifetime subscription to the Ronald Reagan trickle down cool aide. And what did they get? The kind of financial security that allows them to shield their kids behind the gated walls of a fifty-thousand dollar-a-year high school.”
Dennis Trainor’s play is a provocative, intelligent account of how America lost its way and woke up in Trumplandia, while dismantling the toxic myth of American Exceptionalism on its way.
Dennis Trainor Jr is a playwright, performer, filmmaker, and activist known for his thought-provoking and politically charged works that shed light on the complexities of American society. Trainor Jr is the co-founder of New York based Rude Mechanicals Theatre Company and the producer-director-writer-narrator of two documentaries ‘American Autumn’ and ‘Legalize Democracy’, as well as the former host of the nationally syndicated news and politics TV programme, Acronym TV.
Manifest Destiny’s Child is directed by Broadway veteran David Esbjornson, known for his work on ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and the 1991 World Premiere of Tony Kushner’s ‘Angels in America’
Manifest Destiny’s Child is on in the Drawing Room, Assembly Rooms from 3- 27 August.
