When Eric Hill talks about the 2013 revelations by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden about the National Security Agency’s global spying apparatus, he quotes fictional TV news anchor Howard Beale from the film Network: “I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!”

Little wonder that Hill, a Vermont-born theatrical artist and playwright, named his production company, Seeing Redd. As he puts it, “If I don’t upset the audience on some fundamental level, I have failed.”

On Thursday evening, March 6, Hill showcases Exposé in the NSA, a one-act play he wrote and directed about what goes on behind closed doors, shady corporate dealings, black-op missions and “how far the largest military on earth will go to cover its tracks and ‘take care’ of a threat.”

Hill explains via email that his stand-alone play, part of a larger theatrical work, examines the concept of “personhood” via the (as yet) fictional secret abduction, torture and elimination of the two greatest threats to U.S. homeland security: Edward Snowden and Julian Assange — portrayed by Vermont-based actors Thomas Hunt and Lauren Chapman, respectively.

Hill is a 2012 graduate of Johnson State College, where Exposé in the NSA will be performed; the free show starts at 7 p.m. in the Dibden Center for the Arts. He’s written, published, produced and directed three other plays, a full-length musical, and a theatrical adaptation of Jane Yolen's novel The Devil's Arithmetic.

Hill says that he started Seeing Redd Productions in 2012, the same year he graduated JSC, because “the more I worked in local and community theaters, the more I realized [that] their hands were tied in terms of creativity. They operate in fear of upsetting their audience, out of fear of empty seats, and ultimately the fear of money. So they pander to sensibilities, play it safe and stop taking chances.”

One career ago, I was a professor of film studies. I gave that up to move to Vermont and write for Seven Days, but movies will always been my first love. In this feature, published occasionally here on Live Culture, I'll write about the films I'm currently watching, and connect them to film history and art.

I experienced one of the weirdest coincidences of my life this morning. It had been a few days since I’d opened up Words With Friends on my phone: I’m a serious addict, but these days I’m a little more addicted to Triple Town, to the neglect of WWF. In one of the games I’m playing against my cinephile friend Jake (the same friend I refer to in my post on Dune), my tiles could be arranged to spell the last name of a film director who had just died two days earlier. And since I recently figured out how to take a screenshot on my phone, I can actually provide evidence!

Weird enough that those exact seven letters can spell the name of a person recently in the news; weirder still that it arose in a game against Jake, probably the only one of my regular WWF opponents with whom I could have a conversation about Alain Resnais.

I admire Resnais’ films more than I like them, in most cases: I recognize his importance and skill but rarely choose to watch his work. Resnais had an incredibly long, prolific, and award-larded career (he made 50 films over 80 years!), and several of his films are inarguably among the greatest ever made.

(If you’ve never seen the gut-wrenching yet eminently plainspoken Night and Fog [1955], then, believe me, you could spend half an hour far less well than by watching it online freely and legally right now. It’s so smart and succinct and affecting that it makes one realize that few, if any, of the raft of films made about the Holocaust in the last 50 years have even come close to its power.)

Nuit et Brouillard (1955) from KICK TO KILL on Vimeo.

I don’t regard Resnais’ death as a tragedy. Sad, but not tragic. He was 91 years old, and had lived a rich and productive life. I was hit somewhat harder by the death, about a month ago, of the great Hong Kong actor-director Wu Ma, who died at 71 of lung cancer. As an ardent admirer of Hong Kong cinema, I’ve seen Wu (his surname) in more movies than I can count, and probably more than I even realize. He was even more productive than Alain Resnais, having directed more than 40 films and appeared in 250+. That’s even more acting credits than Royal Dano, folks.