'Peace mom' Sheehan in new play by Nobel winner

December 12, 2005

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Sun, 11 Dec 2005 20:30:27 -0500

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'Peace mom' Sheehan in new play by Nobel winner

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Dec 11, 8:14 AM (ET)

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. peace activist Cindy Sheehan, who won wide

attention with a vigil outside President George W. Bush's ranch in the

name of her soldier son killed in Iraq, is the subject of a new play

by Nobel laureate Dario Fo.

" Peace Mom " received its world premiere in London on Saturday night,

starring British actress Frances de la Tour, with both Sheehan and

Italian dramatist Fo in the audience.

The one-woman show is based on extracts from Sheehan's letters to Bush

and other writings. De la Tour delivered the monologues beneath large

pictures of Sheehan's son Casey and a tank in the Iraqi desert in

front of a plume of fire.

" Frances did such an amazing job of conveying my feelings of anger and

betrayal, " a tearful Sheehan said after the play.

She said she hoped the play would help " put a human face " on the war.

Sheehan, from Vacaville, California, has become one of the best-known

figures calling for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Iraq since she

protested for several weeks outside Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas,

in August.

Bush has said he sympathizes with Sheehan over the death of her son in

2004 but will not pull out U.S. forces. Some of his supporters have

gone further, accusing her of being an advocate of surrender in the

face of terrorism.

The play was rushed into production to conclude a day-long conference

of activists opposed to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, with de la Tour

reading some passages from a script.

Fo, the leftist playwright who won the 1997 Nobel Prize for

Literature, said his wife and artistic partner Franca Rame would star

in a longer final version of the play in Italy.

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