Social Cleansing
Arnold Wesker, Chicken Soup with Barley, 1956
I found out yesterday that 90% of the people in council housing in Kensington and Chelsea will lose enough of their benefits to make it impossible for them to live in the borough. The person who told me this compared it to what happened to Paris and New York - these beautiful, expensive cities where only the wealthy can live in, all the immigrants and poor (i.e. the interesting people) pushed out. It will be such a shame if this happens in RBKC or the entire city - what sets it apart from other global cities is its unique mixture of people and the way rich and poor still live side by side.
This was further brought home to me in the evening when I saw an ode/lament to Socialism which just opened at the Royal Court. It starts in the 30s, when the Jewish families in the EastEnd rose up in unions and demonstrated against the spread of Fascism. The years go by and the comrades slowly get co-opted by Capitalism, their ideals disintegrating in a post-war world, except for Sarah, the mother of the family who still clings to Socialism as if it were a faith and who fights to hold her family together through hard work and honesty.
The play reminded me of Two Thousand Years by Mike Leigh, shown some years ago at the National Theatre, which also looked at a Jewish family (this time in North London) and their politics (Zionism). Families sitting around to eat, getting passionate about their political views, then the long silences in between. Both plays have a slow burning pace that pays off with big ideas laid on stage for contemplation.