In October Truth to Power Café opens its No Borders World Tour 2020/21 with live and streamed events in three countries, offering people of all ages, experiences and backgrounds the chance to speak their truth to power before a global audience. This internationally acclaimed performance event and digital platform is inspired by the political and philosophical beliefs of Harold Pinter and his Hackney Gang.
In the run up to the US elections the tour opens on 10th October with the North American premiere streaming from Montgomery College Cultural Arts Centre situated 10 miles from the White House on what would have been Harold Pinter’s 90th birthday.
One week later on 16th October Truth to Power Café streams from London’s Conway Hall while simultaneous events take place in Singapore as part of Power Play 2020: Invisible Lines.
Jeremy Goldstein’s Truth to Power Café is a theatrical reflection on loss, hope and resistance, told through memoir, image, poetry, music, and live testimony from participants with stories to tell in response to the question: WHO HAS POWER OVER YOU AND WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SAY TO THEM? Is it to your parents, a sibling, politician, lover, landlord, neighbour, religious leader, boss, banker, or simply your best friend? It’s time to tell them the truth, before it’s too late. Since its premiere in 2018, over 300 participants of all ages, beliefs and backgrounds have taken part in this internationally acclaimed performance event and digital platform.
Truth to Power Café is a long-term project inspired by the political and philosophical beliefs of Nobel Prize Winning Playwright Harold Pinter and his Hackney Gang. For sixty years The Hackney Gang maintained their belief in speaking truth to power and remained firmly on the side of the occupied and the disempowered and their allies. It is these people who are invited to appear in the show. The Gang included Jeremy Goldstein’s later father Mick, and Henry Woolf, who at 91 is the sole surviving member of the Gang.
As a theatre maker Jeremy Goldstein is the founder and director of London Artists Projects and an HIV+ activist with ACT UP London. As artist, producer, and activist he has championed underrepresented voices and new forms of artistic and political expression for over three decades. He says: “Truth to Power Café is conceived as a love letter to the memory of my father Mick Goldstein and his friends of sixty years Henry Woolf and Harold Pinter. It’s a call to self-expression, and an opportunity to name what might be unconscious or tough to acknowledge, whilst challenging ideas of who can take to the stage and have a voice in the process”.
