** "Harriet was a rambunctious free spirit, free soul from the very beginning, and that's really what the play is about. We all come in pretty spirited, and life will beat you up and make you conform. And she doesn't do that, and that's her journey - And I love her, I love what I see the audiences take away with them, which is their own power."

Harriet's Return: The Legendary Life Of Harriet Tubman. Actress/Playwright Karen Jones Meadows Phones In. Delving into the extraordinary revolutionary life of the famed Underground Railroad conductor - vividly reenacting her fearless courage, her nine decades recreated now on stage in this one woman show - written and performed by Meadows, in her mission to craft this living portrait of black history.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

** "In the courthouse, my first impression as a man of the theater, was whoever cast that show, they are a thuggish bunch of people - I mean, that is how business is done."

Valentines Day Courthouse Action: Don't Frack It Up - A Conversation With James Cromwell. The veteran actor talks pursuing his second passion - fighting the good fight for social justice in a broken America, and facing arrest and jail time in putting his body on the line for a better world. Cromwell phones in from the CPV fracked gas plant, somewhat cloak and dagger corruption trial and courthouse rally in Manhattan, in defending the environment at risk - with impressions and updates that include exposing the crooked lawyers, politicians and corporate media enablers.

The actor also references his past work with The Committee To Defend The Panthers, his role in LA Confidential, the Fonzie, and the meaning of the tee shirt he's fond of wearing, Dare To Be An Artist. And, what exactly was Cromwell up to on All In The Family as Stretch Cunningham back then, and how and why did he eventually end up in a coffin.

** It Was The Worst Of Times? Karl Marx At The Movies. Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck directs The Young Karl Marx, a biopic about the iconic 19th century German political and economic theoretician and revolutionary who gave birth to communist movements around the world ever since. But what is Peck really up to? My commentary.

** "Is this film good or bad for American discourse? It looks like today in the age of social media angst, you just can't please everyone."

Ideology And Culture Corner: The Black Panther Phenomenon. No, not that one taking revolutionary socialism to the streets back then - but rather the new superhero comic book blockbuster just hitting theaters. Political analyst, activist, RT reporter and contributor to this show Caleb Maupin, is our Arts Express man in the street - staked out at the multiplexes in Times Square to track down answers, as he filed this RT report.

The Young Karl Marx Review

It Was The Worst Of Times?...A Liberal Take On Marxism At The Movies

Stacking the deck against any notion of class struggle while injecting a condescending pity for both the masses and the prophet fueling their uprisings then and now against capitalist domination, Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck can't even be given a couple of passes with The Young Karl Marx, as a class and cultural outsider. Injecting himself into what essentialy comes off as his own behind the scenes role in the movie - as a befuddled and distanced, politically liberal eavesdropper to concepts of proletarian struggle and uprising. Class alienation, indeed.

Strictly from the school of scratching the surface cinema, whether a director overwhelmed or intimidated by the incendiary ideological theory at hand - not to mention the enigmatic participation of no less than 27 production companies likely rubber stamping their own two cents all over this politically evasive project - the film opts instead for shallow, typical melodramatic digression and distraction: sex, babies born, more sex, domineering industrialist daddy issues, and the twentysomething odd couple,  more frivolous than fiery bromance between Marx [August Diehl] and Engels [Stefan Konarske]. Along with sectarian verbal pissing contests lacking the essential energy and momentum of ideological struggle - and that are less about insurgency than who has the biggest bark. And while seemingly sparring more with each other than against capitalism  

Hence a revolutionary road movie back and forth across Western Europe, but strictly revolution lite when it comes to igniting mass struggle. And The Young Karl Marx pretty much qualifying, whether by design or default, as subliminal cinema casting the working class as people who have been played by the players like Marx and Engels - and themselves deluded prophets imagining they could change the world. In other words, Peck's powers of persuasion are clearly no match for the persuasive powers of the iconic ideological theoretician he condescendingly counts as an earnest and historically enduring, but hopeless failure.

Along with a film abruptly culminating in a jarring montage of 20th century newsreels, and what the director apparently perceives as Marx's theoretical failure in reality ever since. And a dismissive, cynical view of history scored to the mocking, condescending tone of Bob Dylan's anachronistic, moody refrain - Like A Rolling Stone. 

And quite a suspect climactic propaganda ploy, considering the resurgence of communism on the world stage at the moment, and revolutionary aspirations around the planet as capitalism declines. Along with the majority of Russians now longing for a return of the Soviet Union destroyed by a Clinton Administration engineered coup - and questionable timing as the Bicentennial celebration of Marx's birth approaches in May. Enough said. 

Arts Express: Dare To Be Different Radio

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