8pm
$10 donation
A Staged Reading of
THE REUNION OF OPERATION SUCCESS, HOSTED BY ALLEN DULLES
Written by Ian Maxwell MacKinnon and Rebecca Ostriker
Presented by artezani theater
Ex-C.I.A. head Allen Dulles, now 101 years old and subsisting on an IV drip of banana pulp, invites his old operatives to a 50th-anniversary reunion to watch a play he has written about the triumph of his career.
June 26, 1954, was the date of a bizarre C.I.A.-backed coup in Guatemala that overthrew a democratically-elected government largely through the use of radio and actors. The planners might have taken inspiration from Orson Welles’s infamous radio hoax, “The War of the Worlds.” Afraid for its massive banana plantations, the Boston-based United Fruit Company hired Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, to do “public relations” to convince Americans that Moscow was running Guatemala. The Central Intelligence Agency then created an invading army that did not exist.
“The Reunion of Operation Success” is a love story about the infatuation of one man (United Fruit’s founder) with the banana, a comedy, and a tragedy: June 26, 1954 was the last day of a progressive, democratically-elected government — followed by an era of dictators and a civil war that lasted 40 years.
ALL proceeds will go to Guatemala groups dealing with the consequences of the coup.
MacKinnon and Ostriker honeymooned in Guatemala in 1992. For decades, MacKinnon’s grandfather was a forester and consultant for United Fruit.
Their play was first performed for the 40th anniversary of the coup. Artezani has produced original theater in this area for 11 years.
Production: Ian MacKinnon ~ ostriker@earthlink.net