View Yannis Simonides performing Socrates Now, a theatrical adaptation of Plato's Apology of Socrates, with remarks on Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela
Yannis Simonides performing excerpts from his one-man show, Socrates Now, based on the Apology of Plato, followed by a classics professor comparing Socrates to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela.
Courtesy of Northwestern University (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
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Transcript
SARA MONOSON: "Socrates Now" is a theatrical adaptation of Plato's "Apology of Socrates." It features Emmy award winning actor, Yannis Simonides, playing Socrates in a kind of one-man show where he's up on the stage recreating Socrates' speech that he gave in his defense at his famous trial.
YANNIS SIMONIDES: I was condemned because I was not insolent and impudent. Because I did not want to tell you things you would have heard [INAUDIBLE]. I didn't want to cry and wail and do or say things unworthy of me! Like what you're used to be hearing from others.
But neither then did I believe that because of the danger I was in I should act in a way inappropriate for a free man! Nor do I regret the way I defended myself. I prefer to die, you see, then live any other way.
MONOSON: "Socrates Now" production always includes an open discussion with the actor immediately following the performance. When Simonides came to Northwestern in 2013, we had a particularly exciting and moving discussion following his performance. It just so happened that that morning Nelson Mandela had passed away and the number of students and others in the audience commented on the relationship between Mandela's kind of steadfast commitment to certain moral principles and being and Socrates in particular, and their concerns to make people uncomfortable.
With Martin Luther King Day on the horizon, it's interesting to recall that in his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," King likened his own commitment to direct action and to making people uncomfortable with Jim Crow laws by doing direct action, he likened that commitment to Socrates' own use of philosophical examinations and the way it provoked a tension in the mind. For King, it's a tension in society. For Socrates, it's tension in the mind.
Well, I'm working on a project that I call Socrates in the Vernacular and so I've been particularly interested in seeking out ways in which creative artists working in all sorts of different genres have engaged with the figure of Socrates. The occasion for Simonides return to Northwestern is to work with me on the development of some new material. He's interested in a new production based on Plato's Republic. And he's asked me to collaborate with him on the development of a script.
YANNIS SIMONIDES: I was condemned because I was not insolent and impudent. Because I did not want to tell you things you would have heard [INAUDIBLE]. I didn't want to cry and wail and do or say things unworthy of me! Like what you're used to be hearing from others.
But neither then did I believe that because of the danger I was in I should act in a way inappropriate for a free man! Nor do I regret the way I defended myself. I prefer to die, you see, then live any other way.
MONOSON: "Socrates Now" production always includes an open discussion with the actor immediately following the performance. When Simonides came to Northwestern in 2013, we had a particularly exciting and moving discussion following his performance. It just so happened that that morning Nelson Mandela had passed away and the number of students and others in the audience commented on the relationship between Mandela's kind of steadfast commitment to certain moral principles and being and Socrates in particular, and their concerns to make people uncomfortable.
With Martin Luther King Day on the horizon, it's interesting to recall that in his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," King likened his own commitment to direct action and to making people uncomfortable with Jim Crow laws by doing direct action, he likened that commitment to Socrates' own use of philosophical examinations and the way it provoked a tension in the mind. For King, it's a tension in society. For Socrates, it's tension in the mind.
Well, I'm working on a project that I call Socrates in the Vernacular and so I've been particularly interested in seeking out ways in which creative artists working in all sorts of different genres have engaged with the figure of Socrates. The occasion for Simonides return to Northwestern is to work with me on the development of some new material. He's interested in a new production based on Plato's Republic. And he's asked me to collaborate with him on the development of a script.