Reviews for On the Edge: A Collection of 17 Hard-Hitting Christian Monologs for Youth

The average rating for On the Edge: A Collection of 17 Hard-Hitting Christian Monologs for Youth based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-11-15 00:00:00 John M Rowehl I have been exposed to Arthur Miller my entire life. He is a Michigan man, so, granted, my father being a Michigan man, always thought highly of his work. Miller is revered as far as American playwrights go, penning classics as Death of a Salesman, the Price, and the Crucible, and winning a Pulitzer for his work. Last week I read a lesser work by another American great playwright and was referred to Miller's an Incident at Vichy. Reading through goodreads reviews regarding this play as both important and timely, I had my curiosity piqued and decided to read this vintage Miller play for myself. It is the time of the Vichy government in France. French soldiers collaborating with Nazis have begun to round up Jews and Gypsies and question them as to their true identity. The play takes place in a waiting room of a police station as a myriad of Jews, one Gypsy, and an Austrian noble await their fates. Each character has distinct views on what it means to be Jewish as well as the ability to love their fellow man. The news of the concentration camps has not yet spread to France, and most of the characters are living in a state of denial. When questioned by authorities, each character does not openly deny their Jewishness because they do not believe that a fellow human being would have the capacity to send them to slaughter in cattle cars. As a result, one by one, each character awaits their fate. The dialogue in this play is as powerful as in any Miller play, especially the exchanges at the end between the Austrian noble Prince Von Berg and Dr. Leduc as they are the last two personas to be questioned. The two men have a distinct view of love and hatred, the Austrian making excuses for the Nazi regime whereas the Jewish Dr. Leduc is appalled that educated people in other nations would view him as the scum of the earth. As Leduc deduces manners in which he could escape the fate befalling his fellow Jews, the script comes to an impassioned denouement. Not being one to show emotions while reading, I was moved as I read this short yet powerful script. I have been exposed to the Holocaust and its literature for my entire life, and it is easy to become desensitized after reading many testimonies and histories. With survivors dying out, each piece of Holocaust related literature is important as it is some of the few surviving memories. Miller's noted classics are studied at length, but Incident at Vichy should be regarded at their level, and hopefully taught in schools as well. A true masterpiece, by an American master playwright, I am grateful that for once I took the advice of a Goodreads recommendation. 5 stars

Review # 2 was written on 2013-07-30 00:00:00 Andrew Tomilson How can fascism, such as the likes of what happened in Germany, happen? Can you believe it will happen where you live? Is it just something unfortunate, like death, that happens to other people? "An Incident at Vichy" is a one-act play by Arthur Miller written in 1964 about a group of men who await interrogation and racial "identification" by German soldiers and French Police in Vichy, France. Most of them would seem to be Jews, though there is a non-Jewish (Gentile) businessman and a gypsy. They talk among themselves as they await their turn. Some are confident that everything will be ultimately okay. Others are terrified; they have heard rumors of Jews deported on trains to camps in boxcars, and mass murder. This play takes a close-up view of a particular moment in time, in 1942, when people were just beginning to hear rumors of concentration camps--not possible! Why would the Germans exterminate people? They need workers! The men, most of whom will actually end up in concentration camps, we know, here get their noses actually measured, and they have their penises examined for evidence of circumcision. They have, most of them, fled from other, more completely Nazi-controlled areas of France. They are guilty! Yet the men waiting inspection doubt that they can be in any reL trouble; they're law-abiding citizens! Their papers are in order! They are in denial. Some (even the Jews here) seem to be at least passively complicit in supporting the Nazi-French regime. Hey, they're doing the best they can in a tough situation oour French cops. Don't rock the boat. This play is chilling in showing how one of the most horrific events in human history took place for ordinary people, slowly, incrementally, quietly. In case you are wondering if this little "minor" play from Miller has any relevance to Trump's America, or what is happening in many countries in the world, I quote from Manny's fictional review: "When your country has been taken over by a gang of racist lunatics, there's no point in pretending that really everything is fine."