Speaking of DARK MARKET

My reading of DARK MARKET went pretty well on Sunday. I was glad that it got laughs where I was hoping it would. I was disappointed though that an actor I thought would be perfect for the Bob Rubenesque character couldn't participate - he even has Ruben's Warby Parker-style glasses. But no, he had to spend a long weekend on Cape Cod because lah-tee-dah that's how some people get to spend their weekends.

The biggest problem with DARK MARKET is that the Ayn Rand character is so vivid she steals the play - she is basically the bad guy.

I was re-reading what I've written about Rand over the past year or so as research for this play, and was flabbergasted all over again by the fact that "Atlas Shrugged" has nothing to do with a sober socio-economic analysis of capitalism and Communism. As far as Ayn Rand was concerned, the reason for the existence of Communism was not politics or economics or even mob rule - the reason for Communism is sadism:

...if you ever want to see pure evil you should see the way her eyes glinted when she watched some man who'd talked back to her once... And when you saw it, you saw the real motive of any person who's ever preached 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

The most disturbing thing about Ayn Rand is not that she was a crackpot, it was that her novel "Atlas Shrugged" a failure on any literary, philosophical or even allegorical level is the Bible of Libertarianism, and considered a font of wisdom by successful politicians like Paul Ryan and Ron Paul. And that's the basic theme of DARK MARKET - the absurdity that Rand's ideas should influence important decision makers in the government like Alan Greenspan.