Rowena Hill

High Treason Rowena Hill

Federico Pacanins in his play performs a wonderful exercise of relevance (...) It compares a human being, a writer, an artist, a representative of traditional Germany, Thomas Mann with the figure of Ezra Pound. This prodigious and fortunate theatrical occurrence is based on the similarity of situations. Pound has a program on fascist Radio Roma, to encourage American troops to give up their invasion plans. Thomas Mann, after escaping from Hitler's Germany, takes refuge in the United States and from there he broadcasts a program in German for the BBC in London, to make the Nazi troops desist from their attempt to conquer. At the same time, both writers speak against their governments, trying to make their own armies betray their countries. They both are going against their homelands. For Hitler's Germany, Thomas Mann, the 1929 Nobel laureate, is a traitor. Ezra Pound, editor of T. S. Eliot and promoter of James Joyce, is a traitor for the America of Roosevelt and Truman (...) I had the enormous happiness and honor of directing "High Treason" at its premiere at the theater of the Humboldt Cultural Association in Caracas. And I received the enormous trust of its author and executive producer to do what my experience led me to create. No interference, no restrictions. I will not talk about what I proposed on stage. This is a task could only be done by the spectators who attended the performances. I just want to close these lines with a sentence that reveals my conviction: "High Treason" is a play by and for world art. José Tomás Angola