A play by Hanon Reznikov.
This Living Theatre production delves into the origins of our capitalist society.
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the emergence of capitalism as a world force
 Capital Changes is about the last great turning in economic history, the time between 1400 and 1800 when capital emerged as a distinct force in the world. The company has been grappling with this material for quite a few years now; I myself have been looking at the research of French historian Fernand Braudel (1902-1985) for more than twenty years, drawn to his writing by his brave effort to sidestep ideological biases as much as is humanly possible, and by the wealth in his works of what Ezra Pound called "luminous details," the resonant specifics that reveal the shape of the whole.
Capital Changes is built through a sifting of these historical particulars with maximum attention given to the gradual displacement of the highest levels of the economy from a network of exchange based on the production and distribution of goods and services to a system of financial operations based largely on the creation and management of debt and interest.
In order to come to grips with the significance in human terms of this strangely abstract economic activity, I have created a series of characters who live through the evolution of the modern economy over the four centuries in question. They are people from all walks of life and from all parts of the world. While their identities are fictional, the events that shape their lives are historical occurences culled from Braudel's Material Civilization and Capitalism: 1400-1800.
Our hope is that looking at epoch-making changes in history will give us some clues as we ponder the unknown changes to come.
Hanon Reznikov
Playwright
OVERVIEW
CAST AND CREDITS
SCRIPT
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