Common Sense

About the Project

Performance, 1987
Central Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Common Sense was performed in numerous locations in the U.S. following the Iran-Contra disclosures. The center of the performance was text from Tom Paine's broadside "Common Sense" which unfurled from a briefcase worn as a necklace. Like Paine's broadside, the performance asks: What do Americans want and need? How to build a country? What constitutes democracy? Using 'Victory' mousetraps as rattles and marching with one foot in a bucket to a military beat, the performance critiques the language of nationalism and patriotism.