July 30, 2026: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler

About six years ago, my theatre going brought me to the East Village and Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me and an evening which struck a deep chord in me. September 18, 2018, had been a long day, and it took a lot of effort to pick myself up off the sofa, where I had been glued to the TV for nearly eight straight hours watching the dual testimonies of Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh at his hearing to become a Supreme Court justice (remember that little travesty?). Little did I know I was setting myself up for a corollary (and yes, a tonic) by Schreck’s shining a light on current ideas and mores; for my money, theatre at its best.

As fate (and timing) would have it, something similar occurred last night when I attended Eric Bentley’s Are You Now or Have You Ever Been, first produced in 1972, that uses transcriptions of various testimonies before the House Un-American Activities Committee. This was when between 1947 and 1958, noted members of the film industry were forced to express their loyalties as American citizens by asking them if they had ever been members of the Communist party as well as naming names of others. In the process, the livelihoods of hundreds of decent Americans were destroyed. The play exclusively employs words taken from the official transcripts and from later writings by those persecuted, giving us a glimpse into this dire period of a genuine witch hunt. With a bracing theatricality, a small cast portrays more than a dozen victimized artists with passion and intelligence.

Now for the eerie part. Much like the night six years ago, I had spent the day dumbstruck at the sight of the disgraceful grilling by Senate members of Dr. Anthony Fauci. As they famously once did, conspiracy theorists took their time under the glare of television cameras in an attempt to bring down a dedicated civil servant; one whose years of service to our nation have done more than anything than the likes of an opportunist, and ophthalmologist-turned-Senator like Rand Paul could ever hope to achieve. Hearing Dr. Fauci refuse to answer a single question by repeatedly taking the Fifth, echoed by numerous characters in Bentley's play, reignites an important reminder that a person availing their Constitutional rights does not necessitate their guilt.

Bentley, largely forgotten now, was a British-born American theater critic, playwright, author, editor, translator, and scholar who died in 2020 at the age of 103. In his preface to the published edition of Are You Now… he wrote:

“Like almost anyone who tells a story, I would like you to believe that I have also presented credible and interesting human beings. Some of the characters pass too quickly across our line of vision to be portraits in any detail, but several of the witnesses whom the committee held onto for hours (though here reduced to minutes), revealed themselves abundantly more abundantly, is some instances, than they’d have wanted.”

True to that, under the watchful eye of Tony Award-winning director Anna D. Shapiro, the actors in this production are doing some beautifully detailed work in miniature. Micheal McKean (always good) leads a central cast of six with five additional actors brought in on a rotating basis since opening night June 2. As my colleague, David Barbour, wrote in his review: “So seamless is the ensemble that it is impossible to tell who has signed for the duration and who is dropping by for a visit.” As examples, T.R. Knight’s emotive Larry Parks, buckling under the weight of his testimony, creates an empathetic and painful introduction of what’s to follow. Norbert Leo Butz is flawless as a slyly comic Abe Burrows, who was never officially blacklisted but was denied a Pulitzer Prize for Guys and Dolls when the Trustees at Columbia University, which handed out the honor, denied it to him after the official jury’s recommendation (no award was given that year). Bob Odenkirk is hostile and extremely funny as Lionel Stander, an actor who wasn’t fully off the blacklist till 1965. In fact, Stander spent his lean years employed as a stockbroker. As he once said, “Ironically, I made more money than I ever did acting. I think I’m the only actor who’s ever been president of a brokerage house.” Harry Lenix is haughty and powerful as Paul Robeson, a Renaissance man (football star, lawyer, singer, actor, and activist), whose political leanings caused federal officials to restrict his traveling outside the United States for eight years, devastating his income and international career. Of those creating more than one character, Steven Boyer’s chameleon-like characterizations of Ring Lardner Jr. and Jerome Robbins, among other, were astonishing.

Andrew Boyce’s stripped-down scenic design (chairs and tables) is set against Donald Holder’s lighting, which feature projections of replications of actual headlines as well as informative lines for context and background. The idea of having the witnesses take seats behind a scrim and watch the action after their moment in the spotlight adds a heightened theatricality to the proceedings.

Originally to have run through September 2, ticket sales did not go as well as hoped, which have resulted in Are You Now or Have You Ever Been closing this Sunday a month earlier than intended—truly a shame. However, there is still time to get tickets: click here.

Photos by Marc J. Franklin.

Ron Fassler is the author of The Show Goes On: Broadway Hirings, Firings and Replacements. For news and “Theatre Yesterday and Today” columns when they break, please subscribe.