The Fever

by Wallace Shawn

Overview

A scorching one-man tour of guilt, privilege, and moral awakening.

First performed by the author himself at the posh apartments of his Hollywood and literary friends, Wallace Shawn’s The Fever is also an unapologetically sharp-edged critique of wealth and privilege. That tension, between the pleasures of affluence and the horrors of capitalism, runs through the play, as its unnamed speaker attempts to overcome the nausea—is it the water or the guilt?—that overwhelms him on a vacation to “a poor country where my language isn’t spoken.” Awakened to the reality of inequality by a copy of Marx’s Capital that mysteriously appears on his doorstep, our narrator surveys a world where Communism has all but disappeared, but the inequality described by Marx in the 19th century has only accelerated. Ashamed of his own complicity in shaping the current landscape, the narrator is nevertheless torn between the comforts of his life and a desire to enact seismic societal change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781636702049
Publisher:	Theatre Communications Group
Publication date:	11/12/2024
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Wallace Shawn is a noted actor and writer. His often politically-charged and controversial plays include The Fever, Aunt Dan and Lemon, Marie and Bruce and The Designated Mourner. With André Gregory, he co-wrote My Dinner with Andre, in which he also starred. He adapted the classic Ibsen play A Master Builder for film.

Editorial Reviews

Thirty years ago, The Fever was dismissed in some quarters as an exercise in radical chic. Today, as discussions of privilege and economic disparity rage throughout the culture, it feels more like an intervention, with a tacit warning about the simmering rage of the underclass against the rich (...) The Fever doesn’t want to make you sick. What it says, with ineluctable directness, is: You are sick already.” —Time Out New York

“Shawn’s searing eloquence makes a strong case that art can, in fact, serve a higher purpose—and give you a good rattling besides.” —New York Stage Review

From the Publisher

THE FEVER is a work that asks, in a highly original way: Is it possible, or even right, for a sensitive person to be happy in today's world?

NY Times

...mesmerizingly theatrical—a profoundly engaging journey through the awakening of a pampered man's conscience.

NY Newsday

The narrator is having a mid-life crisis. He's shaking and vomiting in a hotel in a strange Third World country, contemplating the plight of the poor and the oppressed around the globe. As his annoying interior monologue unfolds, he becomes increasingly nauseated by the ignorance and complacency of his own moneyed existence, although he's not quite ready to give up the perks of privilege--luxury hotels, fine restaurants, glamorous theater events--in order that others might be able to feed their hungry children. The speaker wonders how he and his friends could be ``decorating their lives and their world as if they were having a permanent party'' while citizens in countries under totalitarian rule are being tortured and killed, yet he is unable to shake the contempt he feels for the impoverished. At the end of this pointless book, Shawn states that the considerable efforts of concerned parents, artists and politicians ``do not change the life of the poor,'' a conclusion that the narrator conveniently employs to alleviate his guilt long enough to allow him a decent night's rest. This work was the basis for a dramatic monologue performed in New York City. Shawn is a playwright and actor. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Shawn is one of those actors we always recognize but rarely can name. He has appeared in many fine films, including Woody Allen's Manhattan and Radio Days , but is probably best remembered as the balding, squeaky-voiced intellectual in My Dinner with Andre . Shawn is also a playwright who has achieved some success off-Broadway. The Fever , which he is now performing, is a dramatic monolog in which a nameless and genderless voice attempts to deal with a guilt resulting from an anachronistic form of liberalism. The voice cannot bear being both liberal and a member of the so-called oppressing class. The result is a thin, shallow whine that might work well performed by an actor of Shawn's accomplishments but which fails in written form because the reader has read it all before.-- Vincent D. Balitas, Allentown Coll., Center Valley, Pa.

Library Journal