This is the weekend for you to get a step ahead of your cultured friends by attending the opening of a world premiere play, Sean Christopher Lewis’ MILITANT LANGUAGE: A PLAY WITH SAND. It’s an Iraq War drama, but it’s really more about how war affects soldiers and their relationships — an intense hostage situation leads them to personal battles that involve loneliness, fear, betrayal and pain. The play begins with strife resulting from a missing Iraqi boy, age 16. A man searching for him is taken captive, and American soldiers must hide him or risk losing their own lives.
According to Lewis, this is a play “about responsibility in a world that doesn’t make sense anymore.”
Know Theatre of Cincinnati is one of five theaters staging productions of the work this fall (others are Available Light Theatre in Columbus, The Bang and Clatter Theatre Company in Cleveland, Halcyon Theatre in Chicago and Next Stage in Seattle). Lewis’ work has been well received during past Cincinnati Fringe Festivals, including I Will Make Your Orphans (2004) and Then After Water (2008). He is currently in the National New Play Network’s emerging playwrights program, based at InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia. He recently won the inaugural Rosa Parks Award for Social Justice from the Kennedy Center.
Militant Language opens on Saturday. It will be presented through mid-November in rotation with Reefer Madness: The Musical. Keep in mind that, thanks to a generous grant from the Haile Foundation, tickets at Know this season cost only $12. Tickets: 513-300-5669.
