Addison's Cato at U of Tennessee
Cato is a play that is in the American bloodstream, in piecemeal quotation, legend, and early American textbooks. It was written in a time of bitter partisan division; this 21st-century production, situated through the lens of Washington's storied Valley Forge production, takes up the questions about citizenship, freedom, race, and honor that Cato raises in our own moment, and poses them back to the audience, descendants and fellow citizens who are living the tension between America's best ideals and its actual history. What responsibilities do we have to each other to make good on the constitution’s aspiration to “promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”? Is citizenship a matter of where we are born or the values we hold to? How do we grapple with the contradiction that the founders were remarkable men who put forward a vision from which we still benefit, and, at the same time, did unconscionable things, from which we still suffer unequally? The play’s closing warning about internal political divisions, which can be exploited by those who would undermine democratic institutions, still resonates.
This cut of Cato plays in roughly an hour and fifteen minutes. After each performance, a different panel will join actors in a reflection on the evening's question, before asking the audience to join in the discussion with each other. Panelists include David F. Taylor, Oxford University; Jason Shaffer, US Naval Academy; Chelsea Phillips, Villanova University; Christopher Pa Magra, University of Tennessee; Miles Grier, CUNY Queens; and Katy Chiles, University of Tennessee.
For more information, go to: https://clarencebrowntheatre.com/cato/