was optioned for one year by Sir PeterrnHall in London. But no British actorrnwould take the role. Since Hall’s optionrnlapsed, 2 has been produced inrnWilliamstown, Massachusetts, and at thernPhiladelphia Festival for New Plays, butrnit has certainly not received the productionsrnit deserves, unquestionably becausernof its treatment of a painful subject. Irnsometimes wonder if it’s the honesty ofrnLinney’s work that has kept him out ofrnthe big time—^widely respected in the regionalrntheaters, but not much in evidencernon Broadway or in Hollywood.rn2 is not Linney’s first historical play.rnHis playwriting career began with ThernSorrows of Frederick, an idiosyncraticrnthree-act about Frederick the Great ofrnPrussia. “Many people begin to write,rnand they write the story of their life,”rnLinney said in an interview in Louisvillernin March. “But I am the kind of writer—rnand there are many writers like me—rnwho go to the other side of the spectrum”rn—to other people’s lives.rnOne of his most successful plays is anotherrnhistorical piece, Childe Byron,rnabout the relationship between the ghostrnof the poet Lord Byron and his daughter,rnAda. Historical pieces are as autobiographicalrnas any other, Linney said. Inrneach one of his plays, “there is always arndeep and very important part of me in it,rnor I could not write it in the first place.”rnThough he lived from age 13 on inrnWashington, D.C., was educated uprnnorth at Obedin and Yale Drama Schoolrn(where he studied to be an actor), andrnhas made his home in New York Cityrnsince the 50’s, Linney still refers to himselfrnas a “transplanted Southerner.” (Hernis also a member of the Fellowship ofrnSouthern Writers, a fact he includes inrnall his biographical notes.) His parentsrnwere both North Carolinians, and hernspent his early childhood in Boone,rnNorth Carolina, and then lived outsidernof Nashville, moving to D.C. only afterrnhis father’s death in 1943.rnAppalachian accents, Linney said,rn”were the voices I heard around mernwhen I was an infant, and as KatherinernAnne Porter points out, the most importantrnthings that happen to a writer happenrnbefore he’s ten years old—and thernearlier, the better.” For this reason, perhaps,rnLinney is probably best known forrnhis Appalachian plays—among them thernwidely produced Holy Ghosts (aboutrnsnake-handling fundamentalists) and thernObic-winning Tennessee. Even his lessrnwell-known but excellent novel HeathenrnValley is set in the backwoods of prewar,rn19th-century North Carolina.rnAs a city boy who writes about the ruralrnSouth, Linney has some sympathyrnfor Robert Schenkkan, whose play seriesrnThe Kentucky Cycle opened and quicklyrnclosed on Broadway. In Kentucky,rnSchenkkan was widely criticized (byrnWendell Berry, among others) for hisrnmade-up, hokey language; his two-dimensionalrncharacters; his factual errors;rnhis slavishly p.c, black-and-white portrayalrnof good and evil—and for havingrnwritten a play about a part of the countryrnwhere he had spent exactly one weekendrnof his life.rnLinney said Heathen Valley also madernsome rural Southerners angry when itrnfirst was published in 1962. “People feelrnvulnerable. People feel writers are spyingrnon them,” he said. But to his work, atrnleast, they have come around. He hasrnturned Heathen Valley into a play andrnhad the gratification of seeing it producedrnat North Carolina’s AppalachianrnState College in his former hometown ofrnBoone.rnLinney still occasionally directs hisrnown plays (when his full teaching schedulernat Columbia and the University ofrnPennsylvania allows). He still sometimesrnacts, too, and has an autobiographicalrneight-minute monologue called “Goldrnand Silver Waltz” that he likes to do.rnHe enjoyed the acting career he had as arnyoung man at Oberlin, Yale, and in summerrnstock. “Not very many people sawrnit,” he laughed, “but I remember it withrnpleasure,” and it gave him some practicalrnknowledge and an actor’s eye view of thernstage that he feels has been invaluable tornhis playwriting.rnAt 64, Romulus Linney is still hard atrnwork, in the midst of finishing a play entitledrnGrand View for the Capital RepertoryrnCompany in Albany, New York, withrnnovelist William Kennedy. The charactersrnare Kennedy’s, and Linney said hernand Kennedy work well together, takingrneach other’s rewrites in stride. That playrnwill be produced sometime during therntheater’s I995-I996 season.rnWhen asked if he has a favorite piece,rnLinney’s answer was no. “That’s sort ofrnlike asking, ‘Do you have favorite parts ofrnyour life?’ because the plays usually comernout of something in your past that’s extremelyrnimportant to you, that intersectsrnwith something that happened yesterday.rnI don’t know how to describe thernpeculiar way the subconscious gets joltedrninto action.rn”I look at [my plays] as one huge, long,rnsubtcxtual autobiography, which nobodyrncan read but me.” He tapped his coffeerncup and added (graciously), “we’ll keep itrnthat way.”rnKatherine Dalton is a freelance writer inrnLouisville, Kentucky, and has worked asrnan editor at Chronicles and Harper’s.rnPOLITICSrnDemocapitalismrnby Thomas Molnarrna Democratic capitalism” equalsrnpolitical correctness for thernneoconservative. It is a term at least asrnubiquitous on these shores and on othersrnas McDonald’s, Coke, and Disneyland.rnIt is the “Sesame!” that opens doors asrnwell as markets and whose usage, planetwide,rnis becoming as offensive and boringrnas “international proletariat” and “socialistrnrealism” used to be. None daredrnargue against the latter in the bad oldrntimes of Soviet power; none dare arguernagainst democratic capitalism in therngood days of the New World Order.rnSpies were evervwhere then; agents forrntransnational are evervwhere now.rnIn a way, their efforts are silly and useless,rnnot to say counterproductive. Therernis hardly anybody in today’s world whornwould not prefer some kind of free marketrnto the socialist paradise. But whatrnthe panting propagandists of democraticrncapitalism do not grasp is that if peoplernvote for the free market, it does not atrnall mean that they opt for democraticrncapitalism. Free-marketers were therncoastal navigators in ancient times,rnthe caravan owners across the silk-routernin Asia, the Syrian and Jewish merchantsrnselling wares to feudal ladies, thernmarketplace providers of medievalrnRhineland and Northern Italy. Buying,rnselling, bargaining, cussing out merchant,rnmerchandise, and customers arernlovely habits; they add spice to life, asrnyou can see in souks from Malaysia tornSenegal. But capitalism is somethingrnDECEMBER 1994/47rnrnrn