Though the Surveillance Camera Players are not primarily anti-fascist or anti-nazi activists, they are strongly anti-fascist in their thinking and actions. At precisely 8 pm on Monday 9 November 1998 -- on the 60th anniversary of the anti-Jewish pogrom known in German as Kristallnacht (the Night of the [Smashed] Crystals) -- the SCP performed for the second time their adaptation for the silent stage of George Orwell's anti-fascist and anti-Stalinist novel 1984. The first performance of this play took place on Election Day. Both performances were staged in front of a surveillance camera in the 14th Street and Seventh Avenue subway station in Manhattan, NYC.
To mark the anniversary of the Kristallnacht, the narrator of the play -- dressed in a death's head and a suit-and-tie, as in the first performance -- gave a short speech about the pogrom and the absence of historical memory in Amerikkkan society. In contrast to the "Election Day" performance, the anti-pogrom performance was interrupted (but not stopped) -- and in the middle of the "Room 101" torture scene! -- by two uniformed members of the New York Police Department. Describing themselves as "simply trying to find out what's going on here" -- yet talking about "permits for this type of thing" -- the cops went from person to person, from cameraperson to spectator, trying to find someone who knew something and would talk about it with them, but, most strangely, the cops never approached the narrator, who brought the play through to completion, despite the unscheduled but nevertheless eagerly-anticipated appearance by the forces of law and order. There were neither arrests made nor summonses given out. Truly excellent footage of the cops' performance was recorded by several amateur videographers. In time, a VHS/NTSC videotape, which the SCP will be happy to make available to all interested parties, will be compiled out of all the footage shot on 3 and 9 November.
Contact the Surveillance Camera Players
By e-mail e-mail:notbored@NOSPAMoptonline.net
By snail mail: SCP c/o NOT BORED! POB 1115, Stuyvesant Station, New York City 10009-9998
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