play

The Anarchist review – an innocent sense of humour amid political unrest

The Anarchist review – an innocent sense of humour amid political unrest

From The Guardian Jermyn Street theatre, London

The first winner of the Woven Voices prize for migrant playwrights is an open-hearted play that layers a Belarusian woman’s past and present.

Leather jackets and protest banners, bootleg booze and molotov cocktails hang from above. These are the props from Dasha’s teenage years growing up in Belarus, back when she was an anarchist and, amid the fall of the Berlin Wall, change felt possible. Now middle-aged, Dasha has a chance to move to the US but, if she is to get away, she’ll have to help quell the unrest that rumbles around yet another corrupt election. Should she flee and thrive – or stay and fight?

TOTW: Fun

fun or death! have fun or die trying!

Topic of the Week – As parts of the world are opening back up and returning to “normal”, other areas are experiencing the worst yet of the pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, there have been many stories of people picking up new hobbies, quitting their jobs, and finding themselves on new adventures in dark times. This week, we’re discussing the topic of fun.

Board Game Review: Bloc by Bloc

but can you 360 no scope get wrecked gg ez pz?

From C4SS by Evan Pierce

For better or worse, board games tend to be a popular form of entertainment in radical spaces, and yet there are precious few games that explicitly deal with anarchist ideas. For those exhausted by games glorifying nationalistic conquest, monopoly capitalism, and settler colonialism, Bloc by Bloc: The Insurrection Game may offer a breath of refreshing (if tear-gas-scented) air. According to the introduction in the manual, Bloc by Bloc is “a semi-cooperative game simulating protest movements, riots and popular uprisings in urban areas of the world during the first decades of the 21st century.” The name refers to the black bloc, a tactic used to anonymize and thereby protect participants in these uprisings, and in the game refers to the literal wooden blocks that represent such participants.

New issue of UK anarchist zine Return Fire

New issue of UK anarchist zine Return Fire

Return Fire vol.6 chap.1 now out, & new PGP key

This chapter features anti-authoritarian propositions, social movement analysis, dispatches from frontlines of revolt and from its edges, conceptions of various indigenous anarchisms, odes to play and dis-alienation, the usual repression reports and action methodologies, love letters to the land and bodily practices for rejoining ourselves with it...

TOTW: An anarchist's day in 2020

I've been finding myself with little excitement about my day to day these past couple months (years). Get up slowly, check my phone, eat, hop on the computer, exercise, social activity, eat, kill time, sleep. Maybe this is an abnormal schedule but it seems to be quite standard at least for those around me.

Routine is a useful tool for surviving in the world, but I don't need to tell you that it can feel incredibly constricting.

TOTW: How Would Anarchists Organise An Inter-National Sports Event?

TOTW: How Would Anarchists Organise An Inter-National Sports Event?

I've never come across anyone identifying as an anarchist who is opposed to fun. Arguably, fun seems to be a required aspect of any anarchist-activity, for it not to simply be reproducing workerist narratives that perpetuate the mechanisms of boredom. I find boredom to be absent in spaces of anarchy.

'Accidental Death of an Anarchist' a true-life poke at authority

'Accidental Death of an Anarchist' a true-life poke at authority

From The Press Democrat, California

Written almost half a century ago by Italian playwright Dario Fo, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, “Accidental Death of an Anarchist” deals with a straightforward question: Just how did a suspected insurgent, while in police custody, fall out a fourth-floor window to his death?

TOTW: Play in the time of corona

fun or death!

Of the human experience, play has a great potential to tell us about ourselves and as we find each other increasingly quarantined in a world of chaos, what are you playing? Did you ever stop? How are you keeping yourself occupied in this time of societal disruption?

Subscribe to RSS - play