Un-American story

Speaking as one of the infamous Hollywood Ten, writer Dalton Trumbo recalled, "It would do no good to search for villains or heroes or saints or devils because there were none, there were only victims.

"Some suffered less than others, some grew or were diminished, but in the final tally we were all victims because almost without exception each of us felt compelled to say things he did not want to say, to do things he did not want to do, to deliver and receive wounds he truly did not want to exchange. That is why none of us — right, left or center — emerged from that long nightmare without sin."

It was an era of rabblerousing fear among the citizenry: the Red Scare of the early Cold War. In Hollywood and elsewhere, people succumbed to the prevailing hysteria and cowardice; some fought lonely battles against them, refusing to abandon their principles for the sake of expediency. The power of Trumbo’s writing can’t really be separated from the vitality of his moral intelligence and, in his case, such clarity of thought was not just the source of fine writing, but also of right action.

Trumbo: Red, White and Blacklisted is a play about an American who took on Congress, Hollywood and a fearful nation and won. In 1947, the Montrose, Colo., native stood up to the House Un-American Activities Committee and was thrown in prison and blacklisted as one of the "Hollywood Ten."

Employing court transcripts and cinema newsreels, Trumbo begins with the writer’s sentencing for refusing to tell the House Un-American Activities Committee whether he was a Communist. With that final bang of the gavel, you can feel the Bill of Rights crumbling. Trumbo was fired from MGM and imprisoned for one year, emerging vilified and broke.

After his release, the writer struggled for 14 years to find work, even at a small fraction of his former fees. Along the way, using aliases, he won Academy Awards for both The Brave One and Roman Holiday. Trumbo also is the legendary author of Spartacus and Johnny Got His Gun.

His letters — brilliant, biting and hilarious — tell the story of a family’s survival and one stubborn artist’s crusade to break the blacklist.

Trumbo’s refusal to be silenced by his government and his employers stands as an important example in our contemporary times. You wonder how a literate, free nation could have been so susceptible to the fiery rhetoric of Sen. Joe McCarthy, who in the hysteria of the Red Scare, turned average Americans into fear-mongers only too willing to demonize average people.

More history lesson than play, Trumbo gives us insight into a man who, despite being ostracized, continued to work without compromise. The play is timely because patriotism is again being scrutinized now as it was then.

From 1947, when Dalton Trumbo was blacklisted, until 1960, when actor-producer Kirk Douglas insisted that the man’s name appear among the credits of Spartacus and director-producer Otto Preminger insisted the same in regard to Exodus, the humiliated Hollywood scribe was unable to claim authorship for any of his many screenplays. Trumbo either used a pseudonym (Robert Rich for The Brave One) or a "front" (Ian McLellan Hunter for Roman Holiday).

The play uses excerpts from Trumbo’s testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947. He alternates blunt rebuffs — "Very many questions can be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’ only by a moron or a slave" — with hilarious evasions that clearly evince his contempt for the proceedings.

The writer’s devastating words are not against his political enemies but to those who feel uninvolved in his persecution. When an "affectionate friend" sends him a check but has previously been a coward professionally, Trumbo reduces him to worm-like status: "There can be no real political differences between you and me because you have no politics but expediency, no standard of conduct but deceit, no principle but self-love. Give me no more affection; I stagger beneath that already conferred."

He begins one deliciously sarcastic letter to a contractor, "Dear Burglars," and concludes another, in which he admits payment will be a good 60 days late, with this thought: "Considering what you’ve done to me, I ought to make you wait the full nine months."

But Trumbo was scarcely less eloquent when more serious matters were at hand. A condolence letter sent to the mother of a writer who acted as a "front" for Trumbo’s screenplays during the blacklist years is a beautifully articulate expression of love and respect from a man more comfortable being misanthropic.

There are a few moments in which grief breaks through the facade of righteous wrath. In one, Trumbo writes to the principal of his youngest daughter’s school about the harassment the child has suffered from her schoolmates because of his political activities. The letter is full of pain, and it vividly shows McCarthyism’s human toll.

The one-way nature of the correspondence and tethering the actor to a desk so he can read from the script does make for a static situation. The playwright circumvents this with a secondary character — a stand-in for himself to act as narrator, and at one point as a government interrogator. To further enhance the theatricality, there are two screens for authentic film clips. Loy Arcenas’ handsome set accommodates a trial setting as well as a book-lined study, and Jeff Croiter’s warm lighting enhances the shifting moods and settings.

The lucidity and eloquence of Trumbo’s writing are pleasurable in themselves, and actor Bill Irwin gives these qualities their full due, proving himself a natural communicator of some impeccable but dauntingly rich syntax.

Besides shedding light on an inglorious chapter in American history, Trumbo also is a morality tale. It reminds us how easily people cave in, how widespread cowardice can be and how rare courage sometimes is.

Trumbo: Red, White and Blacklisted
through Nov. 7
The Philadelphia Theatre Company
Plays and Players Theater
1714 Delancey St.
Tickets: $30-$45
215-985-0420
www.phillytheatreco.com