This lively production covers Marx's family life, his work and his fellow revolutionary comrades, whilst returning to the central themes of economic crisis in our society today.
The family life he illustrated seemed warm and loving although full of intellectual arguments. His wife Jenny was his closest companion and critic of his work, claiming it was far too complex for workers to understand and aimed too much at other intellectuals. Sadly, it transpires that some of his children died young. Marx was clearly especially close to his surviving daughters.The description of the travelling Marx was forced to undertake with his family (from Germany, to France, to Belgium and then England) following his expulsion from each other country in turn was interesting and I certainly didn't know so much detail before about his life. It would seem his wife must have been a strong advocate of his work and politics to have happily travelled with him to each new country.
Although I knew Marx was a communist, I wasn't aware of all his political opinions and was surprised to find myself agreeing with some of them - although not all, being somewhat too much of a material girl for that. Zinn demonstrated the passion Marx would have had for his argument extremely well and was very convincing in the role.The somewhat less than flattering depictions of some of Marx's fellow comrades were amusing and delivered well by Zinn throughout.
The most interesting and thought-provoking parts of the production related to comparisons between poverty at Marx's time in London in the mid-late 1800s, and now. His diatribe about our society's prolific consumerism against the fact that millions of children in the UK still live in poverty was particularly powerful.An interesting performance, perhaps particularly enjoyable if, unlike your reviewer, you had more than a vague idea about Marx, but still quite fascinating. Zinn performed extremely well and was extremely engaging throughout the production.