Carl Alasko is a therapist, author, columnist, and owner of il vecchio restaurant – a real Renaissance man. Now he wants to premier a preview of a musical about Niccolo Machiavelli, the 16th-century Italian political philosopher known for precepts like “It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”
It’s an opportune time. Washington Post opinion writer David Ignatius wrote a Nov. 10 piece titled “Donald Trump is the American Machiavelli.” Hamilton proved a musical about a historical politico can be dynamite.
Alasko hesitates to draw comparisons to Trump, but freely admits that “Hamilton showed us the way.”
But Machiavelli? His name is considered the antonym of conscientious, honorable and ethical, but his book The Prince has been in print for 500 years.
Alasko says most people know Machiavelli through that political treatise, which advises leaders how to acquire and keep power, but that his full measure has been misunderstood. “You have to see [Machiavelli] and see what he wrote from where he wrote from,” Alasko says. “From 1498 to 1513 when he was dismissed, to his death in 1527, that was the time of Martin Luther, Michelangelo, Henry VIII, Shakespeare, tremendous [changes]. We hardly knew the world was round.”
Part of Alasko’s defense of Machiavelli seems to be that his reasoning is strong.
“He’s so complex and well reasoned. Another philosophy, in the musical, is ‘A lie convincingly told is powerful.’ We’ve seen that in the presidential election.”
Alasko’s notes say Machiavelli was “a man of incontrovertible personal ethics.” He was writing another book, Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius, about republican governance controlled by active citizenry (as opposed to monarchies), when he stopped to write The Prince as a gift to appease the then-governor of Florence, Lorenzo de’ Medici.
Machiavelli’s underlying argument in The Prince is Italian Renaissance humanist stuff: Princes are not granted power by God, but by their own machinations and the will of the people. It was a harsh set of arguments, including things like “Men must be either pampered or annihilated.”
What Alasko and composer Eddie Mendenhall present Friday – moved from the flooded MPC Theater stage to Golden State Theatre – is the big first scene and part of scene 5, a sample to gauge the audience’s appetite.
“One of Machiavelli’s primary philosophies is as a ruler you must be astute and always try to outwit your opponent,” Alasko says. “We were blindsided by Trump. Hillary Clinton didn’t know how to respond. Americans voted for a fighter [in Trump]. An amoral fighter. He’s going to make a mess of things but that’s not the point. He has the power.”
Thanks, Machiavelli.
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.