Hannah Arendt loves smoking. It is part of her intellectual process. The image of her constantly with a cigarette in hand is iconic. It is interwoven into the very idea of the European expatriate thinker in the United States after WWII. And she wants to quit. Now. So on the advice of her friend, the famed novelist Mary McCarthy, Arendt arrives at a fashionable therapist’s office on a rainy day in 1970s New York. In “Hannah Arendt Quits Smoking,” we meet the famed political theorist at a moment of atypical and somewhat uncomfortably American self-improvement. Cigarettes straddle the old world and the new, complicating European and German Jewish identity in the face of American assimilation. But will she be successful? Can Hannah Arendt ultimately quit smoking? Taking its lead from the recent revival of Arendt on both the academic stage as well as her inescapable presence in all discussions on totalitarianism, “Hannah Arendt Quits Smoking” captures the daily challenges of the philosopher’s life – full of surprises and truth, and a journey that comes full circle by giving up those addictions we most love.
Christine Koenig – Hannah Arendt
Cate Bottiglione – Ruth / Mary
David Glover – Therapist
William Axelrod – Man
Ava Kaplan – Stage Directions
Kevin Jones – Director
Kansas Collective: David Kalal, Michael Simonson, Miriam Chorley-Schulz
5 – 6:30pm, followed by a reception
**Since this event is at capacity, registration will be checked at the door.
