Wallace Shawn's 1996 play The Designated Mourner is a complex and troubling series of monologues --spoken by the eponymous Jack, his wife Judy, and her erudite father, Howard -- about the highs and brutal lows of life under an unnamed authoritarian regime. It's the perfect thing to read today, but not because it's "prescient" - in fact, one reason it's so disturbing is that it refuses to be simplistic about the roots of savagery. You can listen to a production here, in which Shawn himself plays Jack.