{"id":30299,"date":"2013-07-25T15:46:13","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T15:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alternativejonestown.com\/?page_id=30299"},"modified":"2013-12-27T00:18:35","modified_gmt":"2013-12-27T00:18:35","slug":"mwilliams","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=30299","title":{"rendered":"Nearing the End of Comfort"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than a year ago I started doing research about Peoples Temple and Jim Jones because I wanted to create a theatre piece inspired by the tragedy. Despite the plans I wrote about in my last contribution<\/a> to the jonestown report<\/i>, I haven\u2019t finished the play. In fact, the play is still in its infancy. It\u2019s not because I have lost interest, rather I have started to feel a heavy sense of responsibility to represent the humanity of the situation.<\/p>\n

It is most important to me that whatever this theatrical creation wants to be, that it be respectful above all to the members of Peoples Temple. This is, perhaps not surprisingly, where I have felt suffocated. More than 900 good people who wanted to change the world lost their lives in Jonestown and, while I know it is almost impossible to represent each person, I feel the need to do so. Otherwise, what do we have to learn that we don\u2019t already know?<\/p>\n

I am continuing to explore and continuing to ask hard questions of myself and others. I am continuing to search for a creative way to characterize the humanity in this tragedy and inspire a true sense of compassion for the men and women who wanted to live a better life. I am nearing the end of my comfort zone with this material, and I have a feeling that is where the art will begin.<\/p>\n

(Meghann Williams lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She can be reached at meghannw@gmail.com<\/a>.)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than a year ago I started doing research about Peoples Temple and Jim Jones because I wanted to create a theatre piece inspired by the tragedy. Despite the plans I wrote about in my last contribution to the jonestown report, I haven\u2019t finished the play. In fact, the play is still in its infancy. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":30364,"menu_order":20,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-30299","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30299"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53372,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30299\/revisions\/53372"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}