Q: What’s the difference between ICE and the Gestapo?
A: Trick question. There is no difference.
The play, Class C, is not about ICE in particular. ICE is not exactly the Gestapo, but as the leading steel toe of the regime’s hobnail boot, it’s close enough for government work. The xenophobes cheering them on need to consult with their great grandparents who came through Ellis Island, passing by the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” (Emma Lazarus) This country was made great by the hard work and enterprise of immigrants from many nations, and not by the hollow phrases of the jumped-up blowhard who’s made a mockery of democracy.
Azuka’s world premier play is a grim warning about a near future in the U.S. where pernicious fascism has grown organically and no one is safe from oppression. The Supreme Court has already turned the rule of law into a parody, making the undoing of the government easier to accomplish.
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”
The words are by Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran minister who disagreed with Hitler on church issues in 1937, for which the Nazis jailed him. He wasn’t freed until the war ended.
In the play Class C, the fascist regime has generated an opposition group, but it’s one that has taken on the progressively degenerative paranoia of the government it opposes. It functions as the other side of a twisted funhouse mirror, where any semblance of trust is swept away. The play imagines that the victory of the rebels would simply mean changes to the leadership, while the nature of government would remain the same.
I was caught by surprise when one of the rude country bumpkin characters quoted Hamlet.
This gifted and insightful playwright has given us a starkly bleak picture, well directed and acted by Azuka’s cast. The space is intimate. And in spite of the show’s stern message there are occasional points of very welcome humor. This play is about people, who they are and who they become under the heel of a pervasive tyranny where today’s oppressors become tomorrow’s victims.
Things are not yet as bad as the reality presented in the play. But it urges us to beware, to speak up for ourselves at the ballot box, and not allow the promise of 1776 to continue down the sad road to nightmare.
[Azuka Theater at the Drake, 302 S Hicks St] May 7 to 24, 2026; azukatheatre.org
Playwright: Chaz T. Martin
Director: Rebecca Wright
Actors: Amanda Schoonover, David Pica, AZ Espinoza, Ciera Gardner