Saturday night I saw an off-Broadway play that featured Idi Amin as a character.  The play is called Steve and Idi and it follows the life of a writer named Steve who after losing his partner, agent and a big career-making opportunity decides to take his own life.  But instead of dying from his overdose he's visited by the ghost of Idi Amin.  And Idi Amin has one request:  write a play about his life in Uganda.  And in doing so, Idi promises Steve that his career would flourish.

Now I saw Forest Whitaker's Oscar-winning performance of Idi Amin in the Last King of Scotland and I was blown away.  However, I still questioned why we're expected to indulge in an icon who unleashed mammoth bloodshed across Uganda.  I felt the same for Denzel Washington's performance of Frank Lucas in American Gangster.  Decent performance, no doubt, but Lucas introduced pure heroine into 1970s Harlem, destroyed hundreds of black lives, and some believe may have single-handedly help turn Harlem into one of the most economically and socially vulnerable cities in the country.  

Well, the Idi Amin character in the comedy Steve and Idi is pumped in for Amin's legacy as a loud-mouth tyrant and a somewhat theatrical personality.  And although Evan Dexter Parke [King Kong, Alias, Planet of the Apes] embodies Idi with so much vigor and grandiose, it's jaw-dropping, the play uses Idi to show Steve that beneath every docile smile, every diplomatic choice, there's a raging, hurt person who could not only morph into a murdering monster, but in fact, should do just that.  You know, expose the demons so one can be real.  In other words, Idi is used to demonstrate that our true closeted nature is what brings notoriety, not the mask of congeniality and passiveness.  An interesting idea, yes... 

But I'm still left wondering if the Idi Amins of the world deserve to be public examples of how to succeed [or not] in the Man's game.  Is using Idi Amin in modern storytelling simply an American fantasia because most of us are removed from those atrocities?  Or, on some subtle level, is this a commentary on how Americans may paint themselves as diplomatic, good-natured citizens, but in fact, beneath the unbothered surface, there's a beast within, waiting to reap havoc [or reaping havoc]?  That Americans may spend a great deal of time pointing out the horrid actions of other countries, but maybe the finger should pointed inward?   I don't know. 

Bottom line?  Should Idi Amin be immortalized?