To The Reader’s Forum:

Great applause for the Winged Ox Players performance of the play “It Can’t Happen Here!”

The actors (members and friends of St. Luke’s Church in Jamestown) presented a riveting dramatization of the effects on a peaceful, neighborly town — and nation –of power-hungry politicians intent on restructuring society for their own personal benefit. Many and varied characters, numerous skillful scene changes, well-honed dialogue, and convincingly retro costuming combined to create a thought-provoking representation of situations brought about by a few ruthless persons who subverted both truth and long cherished civic values to implement their plans by ever more violent methods. It was chilling to observe how easily many individuals were persuaded to sell their birthright of freedom of speech and of the press and of due process before the law for hollow promises of financial gain.

It is easy to imagine how conditions driving the worldwide depression and the resulting political upheavals of the 1930’s could impel Sinclair Lewis to write his novel from which the play was adapted. But can we also glean warnings from the past relevant to our world in 2018?

Two more performances of It Can’t Happen Here are scheduled for May 18 and May 19 at 7 p,m. In the Willow Bay Theater. Admission is free! (Free will contributions to a scholarship for journalism will be accepted.) I cannot recommend highly enough that everyone take the opportunity to see this outstanding presentation.

Susan Kalfas

Jamestown