Jeff Leys is Co-Coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. He has engaged in campaigns of nonviolent civil disobedience for the past 30 years, including a two year prison term in the mid-1980’s for damaging the Navy’s Project ELF as a symbolic act of disarmament. In 2007, he coordinated the Occupation Project campaign that resulted in over 400 arrests in the offices of over 42 Representatives and Senators who did not commit to vote against Iraq and Afghanistan war funding. Leys traveled to Baghdad in February 2003 on a peace delegation and returned to Iraq for two weeks in November 2003.

This post-show discussion immediately followed the performance of The Island, Remy Bumppo Theatre Company’s current mainstage show. Athol Fugard’s daring drama is set in an unnamed prison based on the one where Nelson Mandela was held. John and Winston are cellmates who spend their days doing back-breaking labor, and their nights rehearsing Sophocles’ Antigone to present to their fellow inmates. When John learns his sentence is being reduced, the men’s friendship is tested. Fugard plays the parallels between Antigone’s fight against political and patriarchal boundaries off of the imprisoned men’s fight for their dignity. The Island is a testament to the resiliency of the human heart.

Recorded Thursday, February 11, 2010 at The Greenhouse Theater.