SUFFERING FOOLS
The characters in Douglas Post’s new play Suffering Fools are suffering, in part, because they do not possess the “sociological imagination.” They can’t see beyond their own personal problems, so they wallow, self-absorbed and impotent, in private little spheres, unaware of their connections to the rest of the world. Only Katy, the bright, sensitive young wife of James, a disillusioned reporter for the Chicago Tribune, has the power to see beyond herself, and she is–wouldn’t you know it?–a history teacher. She’s not thrilled with her job. Teaching history to high school students is “like giving a life-drawing class for the blind,” she grumbles. But history helps her see beyond the horizon of her own life, so she can get her bearings and navigate through life with a confidence the others lack.
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James cannot accept that. By inflating his suffering, he can magnify his own significance. But that illusion of self-importance makes him feel like a failure because he hasn’t been able to change the world. Katy, on the other hand, steeped in history, accepts her small role in the flow of world events. While drunk, she recites a poem comparing a lone human life to a wave that rises in the middle of the ocean, foams for a moment, and disappears, utterly unnoticed.
