The Art of Love

Playwright Robert Kornfeld was inspired by the endless world-wide silencing of writers, a major subject much worried about by PEN, the international writers organization. Mr. Kornfeld illustrates this subject with history’s greatest silencing ever of a writer: Ovid, Rome’s greatest author. Ovid was silenced by the Emperor Augustus, who had him brutally exiled without his beloved family, his books or any of his wealth, to die years later in a little fishing village near the Black Sea.

The play is presented by Theater for the New City, directed by Tom Thornton. Ovid achieved the peak of fame and success 2000 years ago with his extraordinary books, The Art of Love and Metamorphoses. In The Art of Love, he wrote about famous lovers of past generations; in Metamorphoses, he recounted the history of the world, beginning with chaos and leading up to the time of the disillusion over the loss of the republic due to Julius Caesar’s becoming the first emperor. The Emperor Augustus, who followed Caesar as second emperor, had a daughter, Julia, who became famous for her endless intrigues with men. Her father was outraged when she shamed him publicly, even though he was secretly as sexually active as his daughter. He exiled the daughter and asked Ovid to withdraw his books, which he claimed had led Julia into her shameful life. Ovid refused and slowly, Augustus increased his pressure until finally he forced Ovid also into exile.

Appropriate For Ages: 13 and up